Mathematical model shows Harris winning race for attorney general in California

UPDATED 12:30 a.m. PST, Nov. 16, 2010

Vote totals show KamalaKamala Harris taking a 31,483 vote lead on Steve CooleySteve Cooley in the race for California Attorney General, as predicted by The Punditty Project's Mathematical Model. There are still more than 150,000 ballots to be counted in Los Angeles County alone, where Harris won big on Election Day, and about about 774,000 unprocessed ballots remaining statewide as of 5 p.m. on Nov. 15. Stay tuned for updates and click on the links below for the latest information from the Secretary of State's office.

ORIGINAL REPORT BELOW

Nov. 9, 2010

4 p.m. PST

Updated vote totals for the California Attorney General’s race released at noon show Republican Steve Cooley expanding his lead over Democrat Kamala Harris, but an independent mathematical analysis by The Punditty Project predicts that when all ballots are counted, Harris will win the too-close-to-call contest by about 13,000 votes.

Currently, Cooley holds a 51,439 vote lead over Harris, with an estimated 1,407,553 ballots uncounted. Projections show Harris receiving 675,694 of these votes, with Cooley getting 611,452. When Cooley’s current lead is added to his projected total, Harris wins by 12,803 votes.

TPP arrived at this figure by taking the numbers posted at the election results page at the California Secretary of State’s website and applying Election Night voting percentages to the estimated uncounted ballots from each county. Please note that this report is not "calling the race" for Harris, it is merely reporting that she would prevail under this mathematical model.

In Alameda County, for example, Harris received 66.3 percent of the Nov. 2 vote to Cooley’s 26.2 percent. According to the Unprocessed Ballots Page, updated at noon Tuesday, there were an estimated 122,000 total uncounted ballots remaining in Alameda County. By multiplying 122,000 by .663, Harris was allocated 80,886 of the remaining Alameda County votes, while Cooley was allocated 31,964. (NOTE: The PDF of Unprocessed Ballots is updated regularly, so the numbers on the page linked to above will be newer than those included in this report).

This process was repeated for each county, with Harris leading Cooley in Los Angeles County by 44,817 votes among the 322,428 estimated uncounted ballots remaining there. Harris received 53.4 percent of the Election Night vote in L.A. County, Cooley’s home turf. Cooley received 39.5 percent of the Election Night vote there.

The Unprocessed Ballots Page indicates that there are 21,376 uncounted ballots in San Francisco County, Harris’ home turf. While the Democrat won with a commanding 71 percent of the vote to Cooley’s 20.6 percent, the relatively low remaining number of uncounted ballots can’t be expected to be enough for Harris to secure the win.

Election Night percentages from Orange, San Diego, Fresno, San Bernadino and numerous smaller counties throughout the state tilt in Cooley’s favor, while Election Night voting from Contra Costa, Monterey, Marin, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Sonoma Counties came in strong for Harris.

Sacramento County, which still has an estimated 101,722 ballots to be processed, went for Cooley on Election Night, 47.7 percent to 44.4 percent.

Counting is completed in the following counties: Alpine, Colusa, Glenn, Kings, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Plumas, Sierra and Trinity.

California law requires registrars of voters to complete the vote count by Nov. 30 and provide counts to the Secretary of State’s office by Dec. 3.

Sources linked to in text of report.

Additional source:

“Cooley expands lead over Harris in Attorney General’s race,” Contra Costa Times, Nov. 9, 2010

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