Mejia leads; Feldstein Soto trails in early L.A. vote

Early returns Tuesday night left Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto trailing her two well-funded challengers, while City Controller Kenneth Mejia held a double-digit lead over Zach Sokoloff. The top two finishers in the city attorney race advance t

For the first stretch of Tuesday night voting, Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto found herself watching the numbers move away from her.

Progressive Marissa Roy, campaigning to lead what she calls “the largest public interest law firm,” moved to the top of the field in early returns that surfaced around 8:20 p.m. Roy led, followed by L.A. County Deputy District Attorney John McKinney, with Feldstein Soto positioned third.

The top two finishers will advance to the general election in November. Even so, it could be days before the outcome is fully clear. Mail-in ballots with a Tuesday postmark will be accepted by county election officials for another week.

In the separate city controller race, the mood looked different. Kenneth Mejia—an incumbent and a familiar public face in Los Angeles politics, known for two corgis that he often features on billboards—appeared to be holding a double-digit lead over finance executive Zach Sokoloff.

With only two candidates running for controller, the race will be decided this month and will not go to a runoff in November.

The city attorney contest, however, has not felt like a typical legal position race. This spring it shifted suddenly after the Los Angeles Police Department’s largest union broke with Feldstein Soto and backed McKinney. Independent expenditure campaigns have since thrown $3 million behind McKinney in recent weeks. with much of that money coming from a political action committee controlled by Airbnb.

Feldstein Soto sued Airbnb for violating price gouging laws in the wake of the Palisades fire last year, and she has openly questioned whether McKinney would shy from aggressive litigation against Airbnb if elected.

“Special interests have gotten really accustomed to special treatment at City Hall. They get special treatment all the time. ” Feldstein Soto said in a recent interview. suggesting that both McKinney and Roy had been compromised by outside spending. Independent expenditure campaigns supporting Roy also received roughly $725,000.

McKinney, for his part, told The Times that if elected, he would “absolutely” sue Airbnb if necessary.

As the early results came in, the candidates’ pitches to voters felt sharply different—less about shared legal responsibilities than about what kind of fight the city attorney’s office should be built to wage.

Roy said she would run the city attorney’s office as L.A.’s “largest public interest law firm. ” focusing on tenants’ rights. wage theft and other issues affecting working-class Angelenos. She is also a deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice. and she vowed to sue the Trump administration. linking arms with the attorney general’s office and other city attorneys in aggressive litigation to curb what many Californians see as targeted abuses of power.

McKinney talked more like he was running for city prosecutor. He leaned heavily on his experience winning high-profile felony trials in the downtown courthouse. and he said he would improve the way the city attorney prosecutes gun crimes and animal abusers. Despite his lack of experience as a civil litigator. McKinney also said he could bring down the city’s litigation costs. which exploded under Feldstein Soto.

“While all votes have not yet been fully counted, we feel optimistic about qualifying for the General Election in November. People want political courage. They want leadership,” McKinney said in a statement Tuesday night. “What is already clear. is that this election has been shaped by the pressing and undeniable concerns of the people of Los Angeles.”.

The early vote count also underscored how the race has become wrapped up in record-setting questions about Feldstein Soto’s tenure and her rivals’ readiness.

Feldstein Soto maintained that her opponents were far too inexperienced to serve as the city’s top lawyer. She said she improved public safety by repairing her office’s relationship with the LAPD and filed more misdemeanors than her predecessor. Although legal costs surged. she said she did her best to mitigate damage on difficult cases she inherited when taking office in 2022.

Feldstein Soto also tied concerns about civil litigation costs to a broader shift, saying the rise of so-called “nuclear verdicts” in civil claims reflects a nationwide trend rather than a fault of her leadership.

Her campaign has faced intensified scrutiny, including recent questions about her handling of a data breach that led to the leak of a trove of LAPD records, and allegations of misconduct and mistreatment of employees.

Feldstein Soto’s campaign declined to comment on the early returns late Tuesday night.

In her corner, Feldstein Soto was endorsed by Mayor Karen Bass and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Roy’s backing included the L.A. County Democratic Party, the city chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Along with the police union switch that boosted McKinney, he was supported by L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman.

Before this moment, McKinney previously ran for L.A. County district attorney in 2024 but disappeared in a crowded primary field.

The controller race, meanwhile, has drawn attention for different reasons: money, allegations, and workplace claims that voters are weighing against a record of transparency.

Mejia sought to retain his seat as the city’s accountant and auditor, and he was facing only one challenger, Sokoloff. The city controller contest has turned into the second-highest-spending race in the city.

Sokoloff. 37. alleged Mejia did not properly utilize the controller’s office to run audits on city departments and failed to keep up the auditing pace of his predecessor. Sokoloff’s mother. Sheryl. has spent $7.5 million on independent expenditures in the race. mostly on attack ads and mailers against Mejia.

Those ads often point to allegations that Mejia in 2023 fostered a toxic workplace and made inappropriate sexual remarks to female subordinates. A woman who identified herself as Sheryl Sokoloff hung up on a Times reporter last week when asked about the race expenditures.

Mejia said Sokoloff’s mother—married to Jonathan Sokoloff, managing partner of private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners—was trying to bankroll the seat for her son.

Mejia has long run on accountability and transparency for the city’s budget. In his first term, he made public-facing databases across dozens of topics on the controller’s website. He is a licensed certified public accountant. is a member of the Green Party. and does not accept endorsements from political parties or politicians.

His endorsements included the Los Angeles Daily News and multiple labor unions, including the United Teachers of Los Angeles and United Auto Workers.

Sokoloff, a Democrat, was endorsed by multiple former controllers, notable Democrats—including Schiff—and the L.A. County Democratic Party, along with other business advocacy groups.

By night’s early counting. Los Angeles voters appeared split between two kinds of expectations: whether the city attorney’s office should take the most aggressive stance possible in fights over issues like housing costs and corporate power. and whether the city controller’s work—audits. oversight. and accountability—can be judged on record even as ad campaigns escalate.

As mail-in ballots continue to be counted and accepted into the next week for those with a Tuesday postmark, the remaining hours won’t just decide who goes forward. They’ll determine how much Los Angeles trust voters think they can place in the next chapter of its legal and financial leadership.

Los Angeles city attorney race Hydee Feldstein Soto Marissa Roy John McKinney Kenneth Mejia Zach Sokoloff election 2026 Airbnb Palisades fire mail-in ballots