Eric Garcetti appeared early tonight to be pulling away from Wendy Greuel somewhat as the two began to cement their front-runner spots for the May 21 runoff.

At 11 pm Garcetti had 48,507 of the counted votes, or 34.05 percent, while Greuel had 41,832 or 29.36 percent.

Garcetti was being helped, however, by the fact that more than 50 percent of the votes have been counted in his own City Council District 13, where a hot three-way race for City Council was developing between longtime community leader Mitch O'Farrell, the unknown union candidate John Choi and surprise contender Sam Kbushyan.

The rest of the field was being left in the dust:

Jan Perry had 17.56 percent or 25,020 votes, Emanuel Pleitez had 3.6 percent or 5,140 votes and Kevin James had 13.53 percent or 19,281 votes.

Those voters will become hot commodities later this week if Garcetti and Greuel prevail tonight. They'll immediately begin seeking the relatively rare Los Angeles residents who cared enough to vote tonight — but rejected both of them.

A Los Angeles Times poll earlier this month showed that many voters were not thrilled with their choices on the 2013 ballot, and are up for grabs.

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