Welcome to LAMag’s 2022 election coverage, where you’ll find news, analysis, and results (when they finally arrive) from the staff of LAMag.com and Los Angeles magazine. And don’t miss some of our previous L.A. politics coverage—including a recent story on the last-minute kerfuffle mayoral hopeful Karen Bass had with L.A.’s Korean American community, a look at this election cycle in 22 chapters, and of course, our cover story interview with outgoing mayor Eric Garcetti.
8:55 p.m. A Grim Night for Villanueva
The first batch of election results just came in. The race for mayor of Los Angeles mayor is tight. The race for L.A. County sheriff? Not so much.
According to results posted by the L.A. County Registrar/Recorder, in the race for mayor, Rep. Karen Bass has 165,250 votes or 50.83 percent. That’s just ahead of the 158,857 for mall developer Rick Caruso. He claims 49.17 percent of the vote. During the primary and runoff, of course, Caruso has put more than $107 million into his campaign. Bass’s total is less than $10 million.
The other closely-watched race in the region is Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s attempt to secure a second term. Early results for him are not pretty. Former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna grabbed 489,396 votes, which works out to 62.7 percent. The incumbent is at 37.3 percent, with 291,185 votes.
The vote-counting process is expected to be slow, and it could be days, or even weeks until Angelenos know who will succeed Eric Garcetti as mayor. But the sheriff’s race could be effectively over this evening. — Jon Regardie
7:36 p.m. Caruso’s Key to an Upset
Since he launched his campaign for mayor, Rick Caruso has been hellbent on pulling off an upset over Karen Bass, who was the instant frontrunner after she’d flirted with running for VP with Joe Biden. To actually pull this off, Caruso will need to do better with Latino voters than he did in the primary—and he already did very well, winning 34% of the Latino vote in June, far outpolling Bass (20%) and even finishing ahead of also-ran Kevin De León.
Prognosticators are keeping their eyes peeled for higher-than-average voter turnout in the Valley and the Harbor Region, outlying areas of Los Angeles with heavy concentrations of Latino voters where Caruso spent a lot of his time and millions from his war chest on his Latino voter outreach.
Bellwether ‘burbs include the heart of ex-City Council President Nury Martinez’s former district, like Arleta, Van Nuys, Sun Valley, North Hollywood, Lake Balboa, North Hills, and Panorama City, not to mention the blue-collar precincts of San Pedro and Wilmington, where the longshoremen union is backing the magnate. Despite all the symbolism of Boyle Heights in Caruso campaign ads—and the hiring of a key de León campaigner to head up Latino outreach there—Bass has some support in the East Side barrio. However, Caruso’s camp says the dismal early-voting turnout of 11% there—the fourth lowest in the city—isn’t worrisome to them.
Nilza Serrano, a Caruso campaign surrogate who is president of Avance Democratic Club, a Latino group, said of the low numbers as of 9 a.m., “We’re always late to the party and we don’t RSVP.” — Jason McGahan
7:20 p.m. Where The Runoff Races Landed Last Time
As a reminder, a whopping seven city races are in runoff territory—meaning none of the candidates reached the 50% threshold needed to win their race outright in the June primary. In June, about 646,000 residents of the city of Los Angeles cast ballots, representing about 30% of the electorate. According to tracking firm Political Data Inc., before polls opened this morning, about 19% of ballots had already been returned.
Everything will change in a few hours—polls close at 8 p.m.—but here is how things ended up after all of the June votes were counted in these seven races. — Jon Regardie
Mayor
Karen Bass, 43.1%
Rick Caruso: 36%
City Attorney
Faisal Gill: 24.2%
Hydee Feldstein Soto: 19.9%
City Controller
Kenneth Mejia: 43.1%
Paul Koretz: 23.7%
City Council District 5
Katy Young Yaroslavsky: 48.9%
Sam Yebri: 29.7%
District 11
Erin Darling: 34.7%
Traci Park: 29%
District 13
Hugo Soto-Martinez: 40.6%
Mitch O’Farrell: 31.7%
District 15
Tim McOsker: 37.7%
Danielle Sandoval: 29.3%
6:54 p.m. Rep. Karen Bass Brings Grandson to Polling Station
This morning at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall, Rep. Karen Bass cast her ballot alongside her grandson, Henry.
Rep. Karen Bass voting with her grandson at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall this AM. pic.twitter.com/P932SOtLiH
— Julia Wick (@sherlyholmes) November 8, 2022
6:42 p.m. Is Sheriff Villanueva’s Campaign Toast?
Elections can always deliver surprises, but at this point, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s bid for a second term looks to be cooked. The embattled sheriff, who is facing too many lawsuits to list, garnered a dismal 30% of the vote in the primary—when he was the only one on the ballot with any name recognition. Now, he looks to lose to Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna in an embarrassing landslide. And that shock move of ordering the search of octogenarian County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl’s Santa Monica house back in September—presumably to shower his perceived enemy with bad press—did not provide much of a bounce for his campaign to hold onto his job.
I’ll personally be stunned if he even cracks 45% of the vote today, and I won’t be surprised if he’s under 40% when all of the votes are counted. If past performance is an indicator, the first returns should arrive between 8:20-8:45 p.m. — Jon Regardie
6:22 p.m. Going Into Election Day, Race for Mayor Is a Toss-Up
As of Tuesday morning, polling is giving no indication as to who will likely be the next to run Los Angeles, and the tight race between Rep. Karen Bass and real estate developer Rick Caruso has somehow become even tighter in the past week.
Six-term U.S. Rep Bass would be the first woman and second Black person to be L.A.’s mayor. Caruso has used over $100 million—essentially entirely from his own bank account and spent on a seemingly never-ending series of TV ads—to prevent this as he seeks to become L.A.’s first billionaire mall developer mayor.
An early October poll revealed a 15-point advantage for Bass over Caruso. The career politician led by only four points as voters headed to the polls.
“Who is going to be the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles? Good question,” LAMag columnist Jon Regardie said today. “Recent polls have had the race tight, and while the demographics of Los Angeles make the city more likely to lean toward a lifelong Democrat like Bass, the $107 million that Caruso has dropped, and the ground game his team has unleashed, are the type of things that can explode expectations. It’s a cliché, but it literally all comes down to who can turn out their base.” — Kevin Andrew Dolak
