Former Rep. Jane Harman (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Of the 16 candidates, there are two frontrunners: Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Secretary of State Debra Bowen, both Democrats. Both are expected to pull the most number of votes, but neither are projected to pull a much larger margin than the other--let alone garner the 50 percent of the votes needed to win.

No public polling was conducted for this special election, but Bowen's campaign released a poll showing her and Hahn to be nearly tied--but with only 20 percent of the vote each. Even the California Democratic party split their endorsement, with Hahn edging out Bowen in terms of number of votes.

If no candidate gets a majority of the votes, the top two candidates, regardless of party, will compete in a runoff in two months. Before the "jungle primary" law went into effect, only the top vote-getter from each party would advance.

Harman retired from Congress to run the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. She served nine terms in the House of Representatives for the Southern California district.

Within hours of Harman's resignation, Hahn announced her candidacy and gained endorsements from major California political names like Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Despite Hahn's heavy backing from California unions as well, Bowen entered the race with statewide recognition from her post, and picked up several endorsements of her own, causing the race to close to a dead heat.

Recently, both candidates have publicly slammed each other in a last-minute attempt to win voters over.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn sent out two mailers attacking Secretary of State Debra Bowen for taking money from "big oil" and criticized her 1996 vote, as a legislator, to deregulate the state's energy system. That brought protests from the state's leading environmental groups -- the Sierra Club and the California League of Conservation Voters, both of whom are backing Bowen.

Bowen hit Hahn for amassing at least half of her $424,000-plus war chest from lobbyists, developers and others who do business with City Hall and pointed out that a medical malpractice insurance group has spent more than $100,000 in an independent effort to support Hahn's candidacy.

Polls close at 8 p.m. Pacific Time.

Reach Executive Producer David McAlpine by e-mail, or follow him on Twitter (@DavidMcAlpine).