Two members of the City Council, Rex Richardson and Suzie Price, appear to be headed for a November showdown to determine the next mayor of Long Beach after neither garnered more than 50% of the vote during Tuesday night’s primary election, early results show.

• For live election results, visit lbpost.com/elections

With mail-in ballots counted, Richardson, who represents District 9 in North Long Beach, secured 42% of the vote, below the 50% threshold needed to avoid a November runoff. Price, who represents southeast Long Beach, so far has 39% of the vote.

If the results hold and neither gets to 50%, they will go to a runoff that will be decided Nov. 8.

Richardson is vying to become the city’s first Black mayor while Price would become the third woman to ever be elected mayor in Long Beach.

Price and Richardson announced their candidacies within weeks of each other and were quickly anointed favorites in the race that included five other candidates, none of whom have previously held office.

The two amassed large campaign war chests, raising over $1 million in the first six months of 2022 and have been backed by independent expenditure accounts that have poured in hundreds of thousands of additional funding for campaign ads and mailers attacking each candidate’s track record leading up to the June primary.

Price, who is backed by the Long Beach Police Officers Association, saw a flurry of television commercials and mail pieces go out on her behalf focusing on Richardson’s past comments in favor of defunding the police in order to fund other community-based programs that could help reduce crime.

Mailers supporting Richardson, who is backed by a slew of organized labor and Democratic groups in the region, attacked a handful of votes Price had taken while serving on the City Council that were detrimental to labor unions. Some even compared Price, a Democrat, to former President Donald Trump.

A Cal State Long Beach poll released late last month showed that in a runoff scenario Richardson and Price were virtually tied with over one-third of voters undecided. The poll was conducted by researchers at Long Beach and USC who interviewed over 1,000 residents who already voted or said they were going to vote.

Among those, Richardson polled better with communities of color while Price polled higher among White voters and those who identified as multiracial. Richardson polled better with voters under 40, while Price generally polled higher with older voters.

Support among Democratic voters was 10 percentage points higher for Richardson while Republican support for Price was nearly 36 percentage points higher. Republicans are a minority among registered voters in the city, but because of lower voter turnout they could have played a larger role in the primary, and could do so again in November.

Results for the primary will be updated periodically by Los Angeles County election officials over the next few weeks with a final result expected to be certified in early July. Any recounts would have to be requested within five days of counting being completed.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with current vote totals as of Wednesday morning.