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Final pdate at 7:40 a.m.
It looks as if the vote counting in Tuesday's City of Los Angeles primary election provided no real surprises. Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel will face off in a May 21 runoff for mayor, as every poll said that they would. There will be runoffs in the other citywide races, and in at least two City Council districts.
It may take a few days to finish counting all the mail-in and provisional ballots, but here's how it stood with 100 percent of precincts counted plus most mail-in ballots. In the city of Los Angeles, 292,760 votes have been counted: 16.11 percent of the registered, eligible voters. Another 28,000 or so outside the city voted in the school board and community college district contests. Of the total counted so far, 40 percent came in by mail.
| 2013 LA mayoral primary | ||
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage |
| Eric Garcetti | 93,978 | 32.93% |
| Wendy Greuel | 83,308 | 29.19% |
| Kevin James | 46,684 | 16.36% |
| Jan Perry | 45,480 | 15.93% |
| Emanuel Pleitez | 11,716 | 4.10% |
| Percentages don't total 100, due to other candidates in the race. Even later results: City Clerk elections page | ||
Those percentages will certainly change some, but not the reality of what they show. Garcetti and Greuel were the front-runners all along. Perry's votes will certainly be in play and coveted by the finalists, especially the African American votes she got. The Republicans who voted for James would be nice to have, but they didn't get too excited about him and should be less thrilled about Greuel or Garcetti.
If there's a lesson in the results from the last time two political veterans squared off with the office of mayor open, it's that the second place finisher in the primary can go on to win. In the April 10, 2001 primary, the eventual winner Jim Hahn finished second behind Antonio Villaraigosa. In the runoff held on June 5, Hahn got 53.53 percent to Villaraigosa's 46.47 percent.
| LA mayoral primary in 2001 | ||
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage |
| Antonio Villaraigosa | 152,031 | 30.43% |
| Jim Hahn | 125,139 | 25.05% |
| Steve Soboroff | 106,189 | 21.25% |
| Joel Wachs | 55,016 | 11.01% |
| Xavier Becerra | 29,851 | 5.97% |
| Percentages don't total 100, due to other candidates in the race. 511,521 votes were cast in Los Angeles city, turnout of 33.53%. City Clerk elections website | ||
In the race for City Attorney, it looks as if the incumbent, Carmen Trutanich, will finish behind Mike Feuer and face a runoff. Trutanich didn't even make the runoff when he ran for district attorney last year.
Feuer: 43.76%
Trutanich: 30.17%
A note on that: Feuer finished first in the 2001 primary for City Attorney, with 39.3% to second-place finisher Rocky Delgadillo's 38.0%. Feuer lost to Rocky Delgadillo in the runoff, 52.3% to 47.6%.
Greg Smith was drawing about 17.4% of the vote.
In the race for City Controller, we're looking at a runoff between Dennis Zine and Ron Galperin. It's anybody's to win, but Galperin actually finished about 239 votes ahead. That contest could be really ugly. Cary Brazeman finished sixth with 3.46%
Galperin: 37.12%
Zine: 37.03%
In the City Council races, incumbents Joe Buscaino and Paul Koretz were reelected to new terms. Newcomer Mike Bonin, Bill Rosendahl's hand-picked successor in the 11th district, also won outright. Felipe Fuentes and Bob Blumenfield squeaked over 50 percent-plus-one and if nothing changes they will be deemed elected too in Valley districts. On the Eastside and downtown, Gil Cedillo finished first with 49.37% but appears to have a runoff ahead with Jose Gardea.
In the competitive races, the runoffs look to pair up like this:
CD 1 -
Gil Cedillo: 49.37%
Jose Gardea: 43.28%
CD 9 -
Curren Price: 27.22%
Ana Cubas: 23.96%
CD 13 -
Mitch O'Farrell: 18.44%
John Choi: 16.47%
In the big-money, nationally watched race for seat number 4 on the Los Angeles school board, there are only two candidates so someone had to win. With 100% of precincts in and counted, it looks as if incumbent Steve Zimmer will remain.
Steve Zimmer: 52.10%
Kate Anderson: 47.89%
Seat #6
Antonio Sanchez 43.15%
Monica Ratliff 34.12%
Incumbent Monica Garcia was reelected to the board.
And on Measure A, which would raise the sales tax within Los Angeles to 9.5 percent, the voters said no.
Pass: 44.82%
Reject: 55.17%
Voters in the city of West Hollywood passed Measure C, which imposes term limits on City Council members. Council members Jeffrey Prang, the mayor, and John Duran were reelected.
