Farrah Khan was in the lead over Branda Lin in the Irvine mayoral race, according to initial ballot counts from the Orange County Registrar of Voters.
The mayor’s race sets up who will largely steer the city council in Orange County’s second largest city.
As of 10:30 p.m. Khan had just under 36.5% of the 43,000 votes cast, with Lin at just under 28% of the vote.
Here are the initial results for the City Council race.
Larry Agran and Kathleen Treseder were leading the race for the two open seats on the city council, both of which guarantee a four year term.
As of 10:30 p.m. Agran had just under 25% of the 72,000 votes cast, with Treseder just behind at just under 22%.
Incumbent councilman Anthony Kuo was nearly 1000 votes behind Treseder, moving to close the larger gap of 2000 votes they started the night at.
Most of the cash in the race this cycle came from unions and developers, who are both supporting Khan in her reelection campaign against a largely unknown field of political opponents.
[Read: Orange County and Los Angeles Democrat parties Clash in Irvine City Council Race]
Hoteliers also jumped in at the last minute after the council approved a new restriction on how many rooms their staff could be required to clean, pushing at least $48,000 into the Lincoln Club, a conservative donor group that’s spent nearly $300,000 on Irvine’s City Council elections this year.
[Read: Irvine Boosts Hotel Housekeeper Protections Following Safety Concerns From Workers]
The Democratic Party endorsed incumbent Councilman Larry Agran and UCI professor Kathleen Treseder, while the Republican Party backed Councilman Anthony Kuo and finance commissioner John Park.
Whoever wins will be taking over right as the city jumpstarts its development on the Great Park, with plans to break ground on several major projects like an amphitheater in the new year.
This could be one of, if not the city’s last election with only five council members, as the new council is set to discuss potentially expanding the size of the council before 2024.
Currently, the city is the largest city in Orange County to have a five person council.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a Groundtruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.