Election 2020: DA Race Likely To See November Runoff

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey slipped further below the 50% mark in her reelection bid after the latest tally of votes from the March 3 primary — making a November runoff increasingly likely.

The latest numbers, released Tuesday, showed Lacey with 48.79% of the vote, to 28.18% for former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón. Former public defender Rachel Rossi was third with 23.03%.

Lacey needs to finish with 50% plus one to avoid a runoff. Early results showed that he was above that threshold, but her margin has been steadily decreasing as the county continued to tally vote-by-mail, provisional and same-day-registration ballots.

Lacey now has 851,796 votes to Gascón's 491,931.

But the DA race was not the only one that might head to a November runoff. 

City Councilman John Lee was still clinging to the 50% needed to avoid a runoff in his District 12 race against challenger Loraine Lundquist.

As of Tuesday, Lee held 50.88% of the vote compared to 49.32% for Lundquist, an educator and astrophysicist.

According to Tuesday's update, released by the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's Office, 2,071,929 votes have been counted, which is 37.58% of eligible Los Angeles County voters.

The next update is scheduled to be released Friday.

(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)