As of 3:57pm on Tuesday, Nov. 16, the California Secretary of State’s website had Democratic San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris up by 29,738 votes over her Republican rival, LA DA Steve Cooley.
Harris has 4,189,949 or 46.0% of the vote, compared to Cooley’s 4,160,211 or 45.6% of the vote.
In LA County, where thousands of vote-by-mail and provisional ballots are still being counted, Harris is leading by an even wider margin: Harris has 1,135,803 votes or 53.2% to Cooley’s 842,854 votes or 39.48%.
The counties have until Sept. Nov. 30 to complete their counting and turn the results into the Secretary of State’s Office.
A reminder: what’s at stake in this election is whether the next Attorney General tries to join the federal Prop 8 trial to defend the challenged state law banning marriage rights for same sex couples. Harris says she would follow current AG Jerry Brown’s position and not defend a law they both deem unconstitutional. Cooley, on the other hand, has promised to defend Prop 8, if elected. Though the time has expired for the state to intervene in the case, Prop 8 trial watchers are concerned that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or the US Supreme Court, if the case gets that far, might make allowances to give the Prop 8 proponents “standing” at trial.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
“The counties have until Sept. 30 to complete their counting”?? I am guessing that you meant to write Nov. 30th?
Yikes. Thanks.