Editorial: Los Angeles County election results a mixed bag

While there are still many votes left to count, there are some interesting trends in the Los Angeles County vote count as of mid-afternoon Wednesday.

At the county level, there was nothing surprising about the easy re-election of Supervisor Lindsey Horvath in the 3rd District or the election of longtime union leader and state Sen. María Elena Durazo to the Board of Supervisors in District 1.

But what is surprising is the current status of Measure ER, the sales tax increase placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors. Despite a hysterical campaign by county leaders to suggest the collapse of the medical system unless voters voted to tax themselves more, 53.11% of voters have said “No” with 46.89% saying “More taxes please.”

Measure ER’s sales tax increase required emergency legislation, Assembly Bill 1768, from the state Legislature to allow LA County and Contra Costa County to exceed state sales tax limits. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed that legislation the day before the election. Contra Costa’s tax measure is also currently trailing in the polls.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Robert Luna appears to have a comfortable lead over his opposition, though he is currently just short of the 50% threshold needed to win re-election outright. Even so, the relatively low level of support for his highest profile challenger, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva (with just 24% support), bodes well for Luna.

Though Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass currently leads the pack in her race with 34.78% of the vote, it should not be lost on anyone that about two-thirds of Los Angeles voters want someone other than Karen Bass to serve as mayor.

Meanwhile, the biggest winner may have been City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who as of this writing has 58.83% of the vote against challenger Zach Sokoloff, whose mother expended millions of dollars in support of her son. Evidently, buying elections is a lot harder than it looks.

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