Villanueva widens lead in sheriff race
Incumbent McDonnell behind on votes, recent ballot results show
Lt. Alex Villanueva widened his lead over incumbent Sheriff Jim McDonnell Tuesday in the race to become the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s top cop.
Results of the most recently counted ballots for LASD sheriff show Villanueva with 987,609 votes to garner 50.57 percent of the votes counted so far.
McDonnell came in with 965,417 votes to represent 49.43 percent.
The most recent results were based on 4,728 of 4,728 precincts reporting, but provisional and absentee ballots are still being counted.
“We counted more ballots on Friday and our next update will be this Friday,” Mike Sanchez, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/ County Clerk, said Tuesday.
The votes are not expected to be finalized until Nov. 30.
In May, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, which represents approximately 7,900 non-supervisory deputies in the nation’s largest sheriff’s department, held off on endorsing McDonnell, or one of his challengers, based on the number of respondents the union had to the survey, which was a little less than 18 percent of membership, said Detective Ron Hernandez, a 34-year member of the Sheriff’s Department and president of ALADS at the time.
The union was hoping for at least about 33 percent participation for an endorsement; however, for Hernandez, the results were indicative of department concerns.
Villanueva joined the LASD in 1986. McDonnell is the 32nd sheriff of the LASD. He was elected on Nov. 4, 2014, having defeated former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka.