Retired Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Alex Villanueva increased his lead over incumbent Sheriff Jim McDonnell today, with an updated tally from last week’s election showing Villanueva with a 22,192-vote lead.
When initial vote-counting ended after the Nov. 6 election, Villanueva had a 4,927-vote lead over McDonnell, but that edge shrank to just 335 votes when an updated tally was released last Friday.
The updated tally released Tuesday showed Villanueva with 987,609 votes, compared to 965,417 for McDonnell, who was chief of the Long Beach Police Department until he was elected sheriff in 2014.
According to the county, roughly 688,000 ballots still need to be tallied.