Gray leads incumbent Dotson in 1st District runoff

Inglewood’s District 1 residents appeared to favor Gloria Gray, a longtime member of West Basin Municipal Water District’s Board of Directors, to represent them on the City Council, according to semi-final results from the Tuesday, March 7 runoff election.

Gray had received about 65% support after the first two rounds of results, which the Los Angeles County registrar’s office released on Tuesday night. Incumbent Councilmember George Dotson had about 35% of the votes.

The first results, released shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m., were composed of vote-by-mail ballots and early ballots cast at the local Vote Center. The second round of results, which the registrar’s office posted at 9:34 p.m. Tuesday, included all ballots cast at the District 1 Vote Center on Election Day.

District 1 has more than 17,500 eligible voters — but only about 13% of those had voted, as of the semi-final results. An unknown number of ballots remain outstanding, including VBMS that were postmarked by Election Day but have not yet arrived at the registrar’s office, as well as conditional registration and provisional ballots.

The registrar is scheduled to provide another update on Friday, March 10.

Dotson — who has held the job since 2013 — and Gray originally faced off in the Nov. 8 general election, with the incumbent finishing first with about 30% of the votes.

The winner of Tuesday’s runoff will represent Inglewood’s First City Council District — which includes the Inglewood Park Cemetery and the Kia Forum, and borders Sofi Stadium and the Hollywood Park Casino — for a four-year term.