Bloom's lead grows again in AD 50, he claims victory

Santa Monica mayor Richard Bloom now leads by 1,246 votes in the latest count in the Westside's 50th assembly district. If he wins, and it looks as if he has, Bloom will unseat incumbent assemblywoman Betsy Butler and replace one Democrat with another. County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan tweeted that another 76,253 outstanding ballots were counted today, across the county. The next update will be Friday.

Bloom tweeted today that he has won and intends to be sworn in on Monday.

In the count on Measure J, the transit tax, the measure closed the gap slightly and now has 65.8 percent of the vote. But the county estimates there are 70,000 to 75,000 ballots left to be tabulated. An unknown number, but less than 100 percent, will include a vote on Measure J. (Of the 3,155,497 ballots counted so far, about 10 percent don't have a vote on Measure J.) So in the roughest of eyeball jobs, if there are 63,000 or so Measure J votes left, the tax measure would have to get almost 90 percent of them to catch up. About two-thirds of the county's voters wanted to extend the sales tax for transit uses, but it's not going to happen.