The Democratic candidates in the Annapolis election held early leads in the races for mayor and nearly every city council seat, according to unofficial results released on election night.

Jared Littmann, a former alderman and the owner of K&B Ace Hardware, did not go so far as to declare victory in his race to be the next mayor of Annapolis, but said he’s optimistic that the mail-in ballots to be counted later this week will support his lead.

Littmannn said November and December will “fly by” as he plans to meet with the city department heads and chiefs to “pepper them with questions.”

“The goal is to start working on our priorities and working on solutions,” Littmann said. “I want to be prepared for all those things.”

Both Gov. Wes Moore and Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller called Littmann, who was at an election watch party at Level, a tony restaurant on West Street, to offer their congratulations.

Bobby O’Shea, the Republican candidate, said he called Littmann and congratulated him.

“Jared did a really nice job. I told him congrats, I wished him luck,” O’Shea said.

O’Shea said he was proud of the race he had run, and appreciated that the races in Annapolis stayed local.

“We didn’t get into national politics,” he said. “We didn’t get into any of the crap that’s going on with other races.”

The preliminary results — based only on in-person voting Tuesday — showed Littmann with 4,291 votes and O’Shea with 1,798 votes.

In all but Ward 1, Democratic candidates held leads over their Republican or unaffiliated opponents.

In Ward 1, which encompasses historic downtown Annapolis, Democratic incumbent Harry Huntley had 566 votes and his unaffiliated opponent Thomas Krieck had 576.

The incumbents who currently lead are Alderwoman Karma O’Neill of Ward 2, Alderman Brooks Schandelmeier of Ward 5 and Alderman Robert Savidge of Ward 7.

The newcomers who currently lead are Keanuú Smith-Brown in Ward 3, Janice Elaine Allsup-Johnson in Ward 4, Diesha Contee of Ward 6 and Frank Thorp in Ward 8.

Savidge and Allsup-Johnson ran unopposed.

In every Annapolis ward, the number of Democratic mail-in ballots that were issued and returned outnumber the number of Republican or unaffiliated mail-in ballots, according to election data published by the city Tuesday night.

Beginning Thursday, elections officials will begin counting ballots that were placed in drop boxes, verified provisional ballots and mail-in ballots.

Mailed ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received by 10 a.m. Nov. 12 will be included in the official total — meaning official, certified results will not be certified until next week at the earliest.

Mail ballots and provisional ballots will be counted on Nov. 6 and 12.

The winners will be sworn in Monday, Dec. 1.

The new council will have plenty to do, including seeing through continued work on the City Dock redevelopment, debates over housing and short-term rentals, and more.

Unofficial in-person vote totals for Alderperson: