Why the California governor’s race could be upended at the last minute

California’s Republican voters led the surge in early voting for Tuesday’s primary — but it means a late blue wave could dramatically change the results as votes come in, experts have warned.

Just a few weeks ago, data from the research firm Political Data (PDI) showed a massive surge in GOP votes compared to four years ago for the governor’s race.

Out of 905,889 ballots returned by May 16, 37% were from Republicans. Meanwhile, just 41% of all returned ballots were from Democrats, down 13 points from four years ago.

As of Tuesday morning, the trend is slowly returning to what is expected in a state where Democratic voters heavily outnumber Republican ones.

PDI data still shows a higher percentage of Republican voters returning their mailed ballots at a 24% rate. Only 20% of ballots mailed to Democrats were returned so far. But the Democratic share of all 4.3 million returned ballots now sits at 48%, while Republicans are at 32%.

Expect more of the share to be Democratic over the next few days, said Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio.

“To me, it’s voters hanging onto their ballots until the bitter end,” Maviglio told CBS News.

More Democratic voters than usual were probably swayed by early campaign narratives that it was possible for the gubernatorial field’s two Republican candidates — Steve Hilton and Sheriff Chad Bianco — to win the top two spots in the primary and therefore lock Democrats out of the general election.

By waiting until the last minute, a Democrat voter could ensure his or her vote could go toward ensuring the Democratic candidate with most momentum in the polls makes it to a top two spot.

Now, those held-off votes are starting to trickle in.

In addition, California is notoriously slow when it comes to counting votes. According to the Secretary of State’s office, mailed ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and can be received as late as seven days after Election Day.

That means even days after Tuesday’s primary, the public may still be waiting to see results as more and more later-than-usual Democratic votes gets counted, shifting the odds of who wins as people track the election results.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last month urged election officials to count faster.

“Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold,” Newsom wrote in a May 4 letter to election clerks from all 58 California counties.

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