In the races for three Los Angeles County supervisors’ posts, incumbents Holly Mitchell, Janice Hahn and Kathryn Barger all carried large leads in semi-final primary election results early Wednesday, which could secure them outright wins as the rest of the ballots are counted in the days ahead.
The contests for District 2, District 4 and District 5 seats on the powerful, five-person board were dominated by the incumbents, the official winners won’t be known for several days or possibly even weeks.
County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan announced the semi-final results for Tuesday’s Presidential Primary Election early Wednesday. A total of 910,857 ballots were counted, with 16% of registered voters casting ballots. Many outstanding ballots remained to be counted, Logan said, but an official number was not announced. The first post-election day update is scheduled for later today, March 6.
See the latest election results.
The candidate with 50% of the votes plus one wins the seat outright. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters in the primary would face off in a November runoff. County races are non-partisan.
Here is where the races stood as of early Wednesday.
In District 2, Supervisor Holly Mitchell led the race with 65.1% of the vote and if that holds Mitchell would be declared the outright winner.
Daphne Bradford was in second place with 13.8% of the vote. In third place was Clint Carlton with 12.8%, while Katrina Williams was in fourth place with 8.2%. They are competing to represent a swath of the South Bay’s coastal communities — Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo and Redondo Beach as well as Hawthorne, Lawndale, Gardena, Culver City, Inglewood, Compton, Carson and L.A. communities of Watts, Exposition Park and Koreatown.
In District 4, Supervisor Janice Hahn was leading the race with 54.7% of the vote. If that holds, Hahn would be declared the outright winner. Hahn is facing two challengers.
In second place was former L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva with 30.5% of the vote. In a distant third place with 14.7% was Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank. The candidates are running in a redrawn district that spans 411 square miles and runs from Torrance, Palos Verdes, San Pedro and Long Beach up through the 605 Freeway corridor cities to Whittier, then westerly to Huntington Park, Lynwood and South Gate.
In District 5, Supervisor Kathryn Barger and challenger Chris Holden, a Democratic Assembly member from Pasadena, spent more than $1 million each and voters received multiple mailers attacking both candidates. Barger was ahead with 59.9% of the vote, while Holden was in second place with 20.6% of the vote, early returns show.
The district runs from the north county area of the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita Valley, through the Angeles National Forest and the foothill communities of the San Gabriel Valley.
Konstantine Anthony, a member of the Burbank City Council, was in third place with 8.9% of the vote, followed by Perry Goldberg of Acton with 7.4% of the vote and Marlon Marroquin with 2.2%.
The L.A. County supervisors are some of the most powerful local government officials in the country.
The five board members oversee a county of about 10 million residents, a number that exceeds the population of most U.S. states. The Board of Supervisors can pass local laws with a three-fifths vote. Unlike at the city level, where the elected mayor can veto a law passed by the city council, the county CEO cannot veto a Board of Supervisors decision.
With its $46.7 billion budget, the board oversees the county sheriff’s and fire departments, jails, juvenile detention, probation, public health and hospitals, parks, recreation, libraries and homeless programs.
The board also oversees unincorporated communities such as East Los Angeles, Hacienda Heights, Agoura and Altadena. And its members serve on the LA Metro Board of Directors, which runs the county’s trains, buses, bike share and micro-transit systems and plans future bus and rail lines.
