Bass widens lead over Caruso in Los Angeles mayor's race latest numbers

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Karen Bass has widened her lead over Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayor's race according to new numbers released Monday.

Bass has jumped out to a lead of more than 29,000 votes, or 52.15% to Caruso's 47.8%, according to the new figures from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office.

Bass had 354,948 votes to Caruso's 325,677.

The race is still considered too close to call: There are still hundreds of of thousands of ballots to be counted, as the latest update represents roughly 76% of the estimated vote.

On election night, Caruso and Bass were in a virtual deadlock. A count released the next morning found Caruso ahead by about 12,000 votes - but less than half of the total ballots cast had been counted by that point.

Since then, new totals have slowly moved Bass ahead in the race. Both candidates have continued to express optimism they will end up on top when all the results are in.

Monday's update adds 191,312 ballots counted since Saturday.

There are still more than 655,000 ballots left to be counted. That's a countywide ballot figure and it's not clear how many of those were cast by voters in the city of Los Angeles.

The number of outstanding ballots may increase slightly as the final vote-by-mail envelopes continue to arrive. They're considered valid as long as they were postmarked on Election Day or earlier.

The next update will be released Tuesday.