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Is Kamala Harris' Lead Insurmountable?

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According to LA Weekly, it is. This blog post takes you through the math.

In order to win the race, Cooley would have to win the remaining uncounted votes by a margin of 72-20. The likelihood of that happening is extremely close to zero. One of his best counties was Orange County, and his margin there was only 60-31.

​If we knew nothing about the remaining ballots, you might say that Cooley has at least a chance. But we do know where the ballots are coming from -- they're mostly from counties that favored Harris -- and we know that they're mostly provisionals, which have also favored Harris.

We'd expect Harris to win the remaining votes by a tally of about 50-42. That's just based on geography and doesn't factor in her advantage from provisionals.

We now have much more information about how this race will end up than the AP and the L.A. Times did when they called the governor's race for Jerry Brown at the stroke of 8 p.m. on Election Night.

It's time to call it. Harris has won.

The post also points to analyses by Swing State Project and by Los Angeles City Council President Gary Garcetti, a Democrat who has looked at the numbers closely, that reach similar conclusions.

I guess we'll see what Steve Cooley thinks about all this tout suite. We'll be listening in to the press conference he's holding at 10:30 a.m.

In the meantime, just for funs (if you're a Democrat), here's Cooley prematurely declaring victory on election night:


And here's a really interesting interview KQED's Scott Shafer did with Steve Westly, who in 2002 won the California Controller's race by just .3 percent. Westly discusses what it's like emotionally to get snagged on this type of nailbiting vote count, and what candidates who do face from a logistical standpoint.

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