President Donald Trump has accused Democrats of “cheating” in California with final results in the Los Angeles Mayoral and California gubernatorial races still potentially days – if not weeks away – due to the state’s slow vote counting process.
In both races, right-leaning candidates are in the top two, but could be locked out if remaining votes fall to Democratic rivals. California puts all candidates on the same ballot regardless of party and two advance to the November election.
“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” the president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday night, without providing evidence, using a mocking nickname for the party.
“Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.”
It is unclear whether the president has ordered the probe he mentioned. Newsweek contacted the White House for more information on Thursday morning, outside of standard working hours.
In another post, Trump similarly accused Democrats of trying to “steal” the gubernatorial jungle primary in the Golden State, which will decide the two candidates who go ahead in the race to succeed Governor Gavin Newsom, and the mayoral primary in Los Angeles.
“They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”
At the moment, with less than two-thirds of the vote counted, Steve Hilton, a Republican, and Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, are leading in the governor’s race with 27.6 percent and 25.6 percent of the ballots so far, according to Associated Press.
In the mayoral race, in which 62% of the vote has been counted, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, with 35 percent of the votes so far, will head into a runoff with either registered-Republican TV personality Spencer Pratt, who has 29.9 percent of the vote, or progressive city council member Nithya Raman, who has 22.8 percent of the vote.
Newsom’s Office official X account responded to the president’s accusations of cheating, saying: “Trump is lying about California again—time to take the phone away from grandpa and put him to sleep.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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