Businessman Rick Caruso's lead over Democrat Rep. Karen Bass has now shrunk to just around 2,000 votes in the Los Angeles mayoral race, as county officials there are sifting through hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots.
Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat, has so far captured 273,941 votes – about 50.25% – compared to Bass’s 271,246, according to the latest data from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.
"As predicted, this is a close race. There are hundreds of thousands of votes to count and as expected we are going to see different results each time," Caruso wrote on Twitter after the results were updated.
"I continue to be cautiously optimistic about these numbers and look forward to the next series of results in the coming weeks," he added.
CARUSO HAS SMALL LEAD OVER BASS IN LOS ANGELES MAYORAL RACE
Bass on Wednesday said "We feel great about the numbers so far."
The office said Thursday that nearly 900,000 ballots are left to be counted in elections throughout Los Angeles County, down from more than a million in a statement released the day before. Los Angeles City is located within the county.
The county released an image Wednesday of what it described as "significant volumes of vote by mail ballots returned through the mail and received from USPS on Election Day."
The photo showed at least 100 boxes stuffed with ballots waiting to be opened.
