With the absentee ballots in, it's being reported that Villaraigosa leads Hahn 51% to 49%. If Hahn really was banking on Republican votes from the Valley, this would seem to be bad news indeed, given that conventional wisdom holds that absentee balloting tends to be disproportionately Republican.

Hahn's people, however, are insisting that the results aren't as bad as they may appear -- that the absentee ballots were being sent back "before we began to hit back" at Villaraigosa.