Mayoral Race Too Close To Call

By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer As of midnight Tuesday, March 5, almost 35,000 of Sacramento’s 274,198 registered voters have cast their ballot in the race to decide the city’s next mayor. Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, former state Sen. Richard Pan, epidemiologist Dr. Flojaune Cofer, and former Councilmember Steve Hansen are all vying for the position. In Sacramento, where roughly 12.5% of the population are Black or African American, hope remains for the two Black candidates — Cofer and McCarty. As of midnight Tuesday, almost 13% of the votes have been counted and all the candidates are within 800 votes of each other.& If one candidate wins more than half of the votes, they would become mayor, otherwise, the top two vote-getters will move on to the Nov. 5 general election. As of midnight Tuesday, Pan and Hansen were virtually tied with 7,840 and 7,836 votes respectively.& McCarty has about 7,600 votes and Cofer a little more than 7,000 votes, according to the most recent count. Energy was high at Cofer’s election watch party as she could potentially be the first Black woman elected mayor of Sacramento. Cofer said the results so far are as expected because she expects...