Villaraigosa Leads Crowded Field In LA Mayor's Race - will Face Incumbent in Run-Off

Mayor James Hahn survived a close call, making it into a May runoff against a Hispanic city councilman after the third-place candidate conceded defeat Wednesday.  The outcome of Tuesday's primary election sets up a rematch of the 2001 runoff, pitting Hahn, who has been weakened by allegations of corruption and other problems, against councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who is seeking to become the first Hispanic to win the mayoralty in the nation's second-largest city in more than a century. Nearly 24,000 absentee and other ballots remained to be counted, but candidate Bob Hertzberg trailed second-place Hahn by 5,800 votes, a margin his campaign concluded was too great. "I called Mayor Hahn this morning and congratulated him on his victory," Hertzberg said during a morning news conference. Delayed because of foggy weather, the vote tally had continued into early Wednesday. In 2001, Villaraigosa, a high school dropout who went on to become speaker of the California Assembly, was also the top vote-getter in the primary, but he lost the runoff to Hahn, 53 percent to 46 percent. With 99 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, Villaraigosa led with 124,561 votes, or 33 percent. The mayor tallied 89,189 votes, or 24 percent, while Hertzberg, also a former Assembly speaker, had 83,420 votes, or 22 percent. Villaraigosa would have had to get more than 50 percent to have won the election outright.[more] and  [more]