In L.A.’s mayoral race, Caruso, a billionaire developer who ran on a platform of expanding the city’s police force and clearing homeless encampments, celebrated with confetti on election night as he held a five-percentage-point lead over U.S. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), whom he will face in the November runoff.
But two weeks later, he finds himself trailing Bass by seven points….
“We used to have a single election day, and often have decisive results for most contests on election night,” said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. “Now, we have election month, and a month of vote counting.”
“It’s been a growing challenge to get the word out before election day to the general public and news media alike to not expect to have definitive results on election night,” Alexander said. “This new ballot flow frustrates the longstanding conventions of how we think about election day and election night.”