Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt were leading in early election returns Tuesday in the California governor’s race and Los Angeles mayor’s race, respectively, positioning themselves for possible spots on the November ballot.
Their leads, however, could be wiped out by thousands of mail-in ballots that state officials say they will not be finished counting for days or weeks.
Mr. Hilton, a Republican who ran an insurgent campaign to turn around the state by ending 16 years of liberal governance, was leading the more than 60 candidates in the governor’s race Wednesday morning with 27.8% of the vote.
In the Los Angeles mayor’s race, Mr. Pratt, a reality TV star who surged in the polls by attacking incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass’ response to the deadly Palisades fire in 2025, was in the No. 2 spot Wednesday morning with 30.4% of the vote. Ms. Bass led the pack with 34.8% of the vote.
Still, millions of votes have not been counted, and late arrivals have traditionally leaned Democratic.
Only 63% of the ballots have been counted in the mayor’s race, according to the latest tally from California election officials. In the governor’s race, only 58% of the ballots have been tallied.
“This makes me nervous,” said Mercedes Schlapp, former Trump adviser and vice president for communications at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Pratt with a slim lead and more votes to count.”
To many Republican voters, the scenario is reminiscent of the 2020 presidential election, when, on election night, President Trump appeared to be winning before subsequent counts of mail-in ballots put Democrat Joseph R. Biden in the lead.
The extended ballot-counting process led Mr. Trump and many of his supporters to declare that the election was “rigged.”
Despite millions of yet-to-be-counted ballots, Mr. Trump declared Mr. Hilton the winner Wednesday and congratulated him on “coming in first” in the primary.
Mr. Hilton appeared confident that his place on the November ballot would survive the vote counting.
“Change is coming to California, and the campaign for change starts today. We are not taking a break. The situation in California is too urgent for that. We are in an emergency in this state,” Mr. Hilton said in a press conference on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento.
In California, late election results are the norm.
The state mails a ballot to every eligible voter, and ballots can be dropped off at vote centers by 8 p.m. on election night or mailed with a postmark no later than Election Day.
State officials accept mail-in ballots for up to seven days after the election if they have the qualifying postmark.
Statewide results will not be certified until July 10, meaning the state had another 37 days Wednesday to tally the governor’s race results.
Election officials said the results “will change” as vote-by-mail, provisional and other ballots are tallied.
“I’m sure the massive, postelection vote dumps will boost leftist candidates. Taking days or weeks to count votes and announce the results is a joke,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
For Mr. Hilton, the incoming mail-in votes threaten his chances of making the general election ballot.
He is leading the race so far, but not by much. Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former health and human services secretary who also served as California’s attorney general, is about 3 percentage points behind him, with 25.4% of the vote.
Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, who spent more than $200 million on the race, is in a not-too-distant third place, with 19.6% of the vote.
Analysts say California’s mail-in votes have in the past leaned Democrat, which makes sense because Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state nearly 2-to-1.
In other words, the mail-in votes are likely to help either Mr. Becerra or Mr. Steyer, who could gain an edge over Mr. Hilton and lock a Republican candidate out of the November ballot.
Tom Fitton, president of the conservative-leaning Judicial Watch, said the Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on the watchdog group’s lawsuit calling for an end to postelection ballot counting permitted in California and 30 other states.
“Federal court sets an election day, not an election week, not an election month,” Mr. Fitton said.
It is unclear how long election officials will take to tally ballots in the governor’s race and mayor’s race.
In the 2024 state primary, it took 10 days for most ballots to be counted.
The mayor’s race is likely to be tallied much sooner.
Ms. Bass has already secured a spot on the November ballot.
Mr. Pratt, many analysts predict, will also win a spot on the ballot. He is trailed by far-left candidate Nithya Raman, who had won 22.3% of the vote as of Wednesday morning.
Outcomes can change as the vote counts continue, however.
In the 2022 mayor’s race, Rick Caruso was initially leading Ms. Bass on election night, only to fall behind and lose as additional ballots were counted over the following week.
An estimated 290,000 votes are outstanding in the mayor’s race. In the governor’s race, nearly 3.7 million ballots remain to be counted, election officials said.
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