Some L.A. election races still in doubt *

In the 1 a.m. bulletin from the City Clerk, a bit over 89% of the precincts have been counted and nearly all of the mail-in ballots. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is straggling along with enough votes to win comfortably, but he's only at 55%. Compare that to 1997, the last time an incumbent mayor ran against a field of candidates and won outright in the primary. Richard Riordan got 61.5% that year, and he had a serious challenger in former state Sen. Tom Hayden, who pulled 34.5%. Not an overpowering showing by Villaraigosa unless his total swells in the stretch run.

None of this year's pretenders will come close to matching Hayden, but Walter Moore will at least be able to say he more than tripled his vote total of 11,409 from four years ago. Another comparison to 1997: That year, the citywide turnout was 31%, or 424,653 votes. This time, the total lags way behind. Thus far in the count, the city clerk says 221,295 votes were cast. That's 14% of the registered voters, folks. Fourteen percent including mail-ins, but the total is still rising a bit.

Measure B trails by 102 votes after leading most of the night, so stay tuned.

Jack Weiss and Carmen Trutanich will do the runoff thing in May for the office of city attorney, so keep the kiddies away from the TV. Wendy Greuel ran away with the race for City Controller, with a 66% to 16% lead over the disappointing Nick Patsaouras at this point. In fact, right now Patsaouras trails Kathleen Evans.

In the 5th council district, Paul Koretz and David Vahedi are headed for the runoff.

Updated bulletins from the City Clerk are posted here. The current one is bulletin #9.

Updated with new info