(Neon Tommy)

Greuel had more big names backing her campaign, such as Bill Clinton, Magic Johnson and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and more money to spend. The most recent USC/Los Angeles Times poll found 3 percent of Greuel supporters cited Bill Clinton's endorsement as the main reason to vote for her.

But the poll also showed Garcetti retained his lead, with more than half of voters saying they were "very and somewhat favorable" to Garcetti than the average 40 percent who said the same about Greuel.

A Loyola Marymount University exit poll also confirmed that Garcetti retained a slight lead over his opponent on election day. After surveying 800 voters with a margin of error of 3.4 percent, the LMU poll showed Garcetti ahead by eight points.

Even with the historically low turnout (this will be the first mayor elected with such few votes since 1930), the city clerk reports that as of Tuesday morning, 23.6 percent of requested vote-by-mail ballots has been returned.

That’s a slightly higher than those returned for the March primary, and the Greuel campaign says they expect more people to vote this time around. With extra efforts being poured into a vote-by-mail campaign and campaigners calling potential voters as late as 7:30 p.m. on election night to make sure they voted (I received two calls within minutes), Greuel is confident that her efforts will yield big returns.

“We reached out to a lot of people who were not a part of that primary pool of voters,” Greuel told KPCC.

And she could be right. With currently eight percent of ballots counted, Greuel leads Garcetti by three percent. But the night is still young.

Follow Neon Tommy's Coverage of the  2013 L.A. Mayoral Election