SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In the race for Sacramento mayor, current Assemblymember Kevin McCarty’s lead over public health professional Dr. Flojaune “Flo” Cofer has narrowed slightly – but he remains 9,228 votes ahead of his opponent.
That’s according to the latest update of ballot counts, published by Sacramento County Friday afternoon. The next update is due on Tuesday.
Prior to Friday’s update, Cofer had 37,542 votes (44.8%), trailing 8,684 votes behind McCarty, who had 46,226 votes (55.2%).
Friday’s updated results show Cofer now has 52,248 votes (45.94%) and McCarty has 61,476 votes (54.06%). After Election Night, they were separated by 10.4% of the vote. They're now separated by 8.1%.
ABC10 reached out to both campaigns for reaction to Friday’s numbers.
Jeff Rousset, Cofer's campaign manager, told ABC10 in an interview, "We know that our people tend to vote late. A lot of our folks voted on Election Day, so those votes are going to get counted later. We always expected that the early votes would be favorable towards our opponent, and we're closing the gap, and so that's what we were always expecting to do. That's the direction that we want to see this heading."
McCarty reacted to the update on social media, saying, "I want to thank my supporters, volunteers and all Sacramentans. I'm pleased so far with the results. But with tens of thousands of ballots left to count, there is still a long way to go. I look forward to the next batch of results next week."
At this point, 122,076 ballots have been counted in this race. That includes voters who either skipped the Sacramento mayoral race on their ballot or picked both candidates, thus invalidating their vote for mayor. That number represents 43.48% of the 280,776 registered voters within Sacramento city limits. While we won’t know the total voter turnout in this race until later, it’s likely many thousands more votes remain to be counted, given the high voter turnout predicted due to the presidential race.
Vote-by-mail ballots that have yet to be counted must have been postmarked on or before Election Day and received by Nov. 12. The county has until Dec. 5 to certify final, official results.
The new mayor and two new city councilmembers will be sworn in at the Sacramento City Council’s Dec. 10 meeting.
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