Cooley Leads Harris in Attorney General's Race

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley led San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris by 40,958 votes in the race for state attorney general, according to an updated count of vote by mail, provisional and damaged ballots released Monday by the Secretary of State's Office.
  
Cooley, a Republican, had 3,763,416 votes, 46.1 percent, to 3,722,458 for Harris, a Democrat, 45.6 percent.
  
Cooley's lead had shrunk to 19,189 votes earlier in the day.
  
When polls closed last Tuesday and initial votes were counted, Cooley found himself trailing Harris by nearly 15,000 votes. But with thousands of vote by mail, provisional and damaged ballots remaining to be counted, the race as too close to call.
  
Harris campaign officials said they were still confident their candidate ould prevail.
  
``There are still many votes left to count,'' said Debbie Mesloh, senior dviser to the Harris campaign. ``We are confident that uncounted ballots ill only bolster Kamala Harris, as they will reflect Harris' strong Election ay advantage.''
 
Kevin Spillane, a senior consultant with the Cooley campaign, said last wek ``we expect the numbers -- and the lead -- to fluctuate during the vote counting process over the next few weeks.''
  
Cooley declared victory on the night of the election, but backed off when he would up trailing by night's end.
  
Under state law, county registrars of voters must complete the vote counting by Nov. 30 and provide their counts to the Secretary of State's Office by Dec. 3.