Cooley Widens Lead Over Harris In AG Race
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS) — Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley expanded his lead on Tuesday over San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris in the race for state attorney general, but Cooley campaign officials acknowleged that the data could "fluctuate" further amid the ongoing recount.
Cooley, a Republican, had 3,782,957 votes, 46.1 percent, to 3,731,518 for Harris, a Democrat, 45.5 percent, according to an updated count of vote by mail, provisional and damaged ballots released by the California Secretary of State's Office on Tuesday. That gave Cooley a lead of 51,439 votes.
Cooley's lead had been 19,189 votes on Monday.
When polls closed a week ago Tuesday, Cooley declared victory, but by early Wednesday, Harris led by nearly 15,000 votes. However, with thousands of ballots remaining to be counted, the race was too close to call.
Harris campaign officials said they were still confident their candidate would prevail.
"There are still many votes left to count," said Debbie Mesloh, senior adviser to the Harris campaign. "We are confident that uncounted ballots will only bolster Kamala Harris, as they will reflect Harris' strong Election Day advantage."
Kevin Spillane, a senior consultant with the Cooley campaign, said, "we expect the numbers — and the lead — to fluctuate during the vote counting process."
Under state law, county registrars of voters must complete the vote counting by Nov. 30 and provide their counts to the Secretary of State's Office by Dec. 3.
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