Incumbent Jackie Lacey is holding a commanding lead over two opponents for Los Angeles district attorney and appears headed toward a third term in office, according to official election results that show she may have just enough support in the race to avoid a runoff in November.
Lacey was in the lead after receiving 489,835 votes, or 50.69%, which is more than the 50% majority she needs to stay in office without a runoff, according to official returns from County Clerk of the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office.
Challenger George Gascón was in second with 259,307 votes or 26.83%, and public defender Rachel Rossi was in third with 217,165 votes, or 22.47%.
L.A. County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said Wednesday the latest numbers were semi-official results, and it was unclear how many late, provisional or mail-in ballots still need to be tallied, according to CBS LA News 2.
For now, Lacey’s lead shows she may have sidestepped a major controversy Monday in which her husband, David, briefly held a group of Black Lives Matter protesters at gunpoint outside the couple's home, according to video of the incident that went viral on social media.
The situation started on the eve of the election, when about 30 protesters arrived at Lacey's home in Grenada Hills before dawn with banners, signs, bullhorns and chairs, and called for Lacey to come outside for a face-to-face meeting to address her reluctance to prosecute high-profile suspects and police officers involved in deadly shootings.
That’s when a man emerged with a gun from inside the front door of the residence.
With a hotly contested election hours away, Lacey was forced to hold a news conference later in the day and apologized, saying she and her husband were awakened and frightened by the demonstrators.
“His response was in fear, and now that he realizes what happened, he wanted me to say to the protesters, the person that he showed the gun to, that he was sorry, that he was profoundly sorry,” Lacey said, according to the AP.
The protesters later dismissed Lacey’s apology, saying the group felt “traumatized” after David Lacey pointed his gun “inches” from them, according to the AP.
“She didn’t apologize to us,” said Dr. Melina Abdullah, who was among the protesters involved in the incident. “And an apology isn’t enough. We need her to change. We need her to be accountable or she can retire.”
An LAPD spokesperson confirmed Monday that detectives were investigating a “possible assault with a deadly weapon,” according to the AP.
So far, though, no arrests have been reported.
By Tuesday, voters were heading to the polls with the disturbing incident of the previous day still fresh in their memories.
Police shootings were a critical focus of the race, and reports say Jackie Lacey has clashed repeatedly with the same group of protesters about the issue.
More than 500 fatal police shootings have been reported under Lacey’s watch since she was first elected in 2012. Reports say she has declined to bring charges in most if not all of the cases.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles voters complained Tuesday about long wait times and electronic operational glitches at many of the county’s voting centers where a new $300 million voting system was deployed for the first time.
Among the voting problems reported by the Los Angeles Times were:
- locations that didn't open on time or were hard to find;
- ballot-marking devices that jammed or failed to operate;
- voter registration devices that didn't work, requiring provisional ballots.
L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn on Wednesday called for an investigation into "many failures of electronic voting machines" on Super Tuesday, according to KFI AM 640 Los Angeles.
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