More than three weeks after voting ended in California’s primary election, local registrar of voters offices have completed, or are nearly done with, their vote tabulations.
In Los Angeles County, the registrar’s office certified its vote count on Friday, June 26, several days ahead of a state deadline for doing so.
Next, the California secretary of state has until July 10 to certify all election results statewide, while many candidates who are moving on to the general election are already looking ahead to November.
For the 2026 primary election, over 2.22 million L.A. County residents cast ballots, which was 37.81% of eligible voters, according to the county registrar’s office. Statewide, voter turnout hovered around 40.8%, based on unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office on Friday afternoon.
The turnout in L.A. County for this year’s primary election was noticeably higher than in 2022, when midterm elections were last held. During that year’s primary election, L.A. County reported a 28.48% turnout among eligible voters.
Compare that to two years ago, the most recent presidential election year, when 28.9% of eligible voters in L.A. County cast ballots in the primary election.
If these numbers seem low, remember that voter turnout tends to be lower for primary elections than general elections.
As far as the outcomes of races, some contests were more or less called on election night, while others had voters and stakeholders hitting the “refresh” button over several days for the latest vote tallies.
In the L.A. mayoral race, for example, it took nearly a week of ballot counting before the Associated Press projected that L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman would join incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the November runoff election. For the first several days after the election, candidate Spencer Pratt held the No. 2 spot before he was overtaken by Raman.
In the state Senate District 24 race, where 10 candidates appeared on the ballot — the most of any California legislative race this year — media consultant Brian Goldsmith waited eight days after voting had ended before declaring that he, along with West Hollywood Councilmember John Erickson, would advance to the November runoff.
Another candidate, G. Rick Marshall, had placed in the top two in that race early on in the vote-counting process but saw his lead over Goldsmith slip as more late-arriving mail ballots were tabulated.
It also took more than a week after the election before proponents of L.A. County’s Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax to fund local healthcare services impacted by federal cuts, declared victory.
The measure narrowly passed with 50.64% voter support, according to the L.A. County registrar’s office.
For more L.A. County race results, check out the registrar’s website at results.lavote.gov.
In races with runoff elections, the two advancing candidates will battle it out in the general election, scheduled for Nov. 3 this year.