Imelda Padilla appeared to be on track to claim victory in the special election to replace former Councilmember Nury Martinez on the Los Angeles City Council, based on semifinal results issued by the county registrar’s office.
Padilla’s lead over her rival, Marisa Alcaraz, was more than 13 percentage points when the initial set of election results trickled in on Tuesday, June 27 – a lead that remained virtually unchanged by night’s end when semifinal results were released. Padilla had 6,684 votes (56.7%) while Alcaraz had 5,096 votes (43.3%). The registrar’s office will post further results on Friday.
On Wednesday, June 28, the registrar’s office estimated that 3,280 ballots were left to count, but officials expect that number to increase as more vote-by-mail ballots are returned to its office over the next few days. Ballots postmarked by election day and received by the registrar by Wednesday, July 5, will be counted.
Padilla had not declared victory as of Wednesday afternoon, nor had Alcaraz conceded. But given Padilla’s sizable lead, Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, was ready to call the race for her.
“The race is over. … (Alcaraz) would have to win like 85% of the remaining votes. That’s not going to happen,” Guerra said. “You can call Padilla the projected winner.”
Voter data analyst Paul Mitchell, vice president of the firm Political Data Inc., said that if about 3,280 ballots remain to be counted, three-quarters of the outstanding votes would have to go to Alcaraz to give her a chance to win.
“That’s not going to happen. It would have to break so wildly the other way. It’s not conceivable,” Mitchell said.
Despite the odds in her favor, Padilla refrained from declaring victory on Wednesday. Instead, Padilla, who’s worked as a community organizer, said in a statement that she was “incredibly happy and humbled” by the results so far.
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