Huge voter rush shakes up deadlocked 2026 governor and mayor race in LA County

The trend of increased voter turnout appears to be holding, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office, as polls prepared to close Tuesday evening.

More than 1.3 million ballots had been cast as of 8 pm Tuesday when polls closed across the state of California, including both mail-in and in-person votes, representing a roughly 2% to 3% increase compared to the 2022 primary election.

As ballots continued to arrive and be processed, election officials cautioned against expecting immediate results.

“You will likely hear from some big voices, some loud voices, that it’s crazy … that it takes this long for votes to be counted,” Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said during a news conference at a ballot processing center in the City of Industry.

“I want to emphasize that it’s not stupid. It’s not crazy. It’s actually the law in California.”

Within the city of Los Angeles, turnout is also running slightly ahead of 2022 levels, with officials reporting at least a 1.5 percentage-point increase.

Analysts say the rise in participation can be attributed both to voter enthusiasm and to the simple fact that there are more registered voters than there were four years ago.

“The short answer is there are a lot more registered voters this cycle since the last presidential cycle,” analyst John Fleischman told The Post.

“So there are more people registered, there are more people with live ballots, and so there are more people returning ballots.”

While turnout is up, Fleischman cautioned that it remains too early to determine which candidates or parties stand to benefit.

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“It’s really too early to tell who would benefit from that,” he said. “In previous election cycles going back quite a number of years, Democrats have voted early, and Republicans have voted more on election day and late.

“And clearly that slipped around this year.”

Other political observers pointed to the competitiveness of this year’s contests as another likely factor driving turnout.

“The governor’s race is a contested primary; 2022 wasn’t,” Democratic consultant Steven Maviglio told The Post.

“The mayor’s race in the city is generating national buzz, which may be attracting voters that typically sit out the primary.”

The increase in participation comes as voters weigh several high-profile races, including the closely watched Los Angeles mayoral contest between incumbent Karen Bass, reality TV star Spencer Pratt, and progressive county official Nithya Raman, as well as the race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In that contest, Xavier Becerra, former HHS secretary; Fox News host Steve Hilton; and billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer have led most public polling.

Pollster Paul Mitchell noted that Republicans appeared to be overperforming in the early vote returns.

“Republicans having higher early vote. For some reason 50-64 higher and men higher in city of LA,” Mitchell told The Post. “Probably good for Pratt early numbers but not gonna hold for him as those later Democratic ballots get tabulated.”

Fleischman suggested some Democratic voters may have delayed returning their ballots amid concerns about the possibility of Democrats being shut out of key races.

“It would appear that Democrats, many of them were holding their ballots in order to try to figure out whether or not Republicans were gonna lock out Democrats. You know, there was a lot of messaging from the Democrat Party about that,” Fleischman said.

“It clearly freaked out a lot of Democratic voters, especially the older ones.”