Lt. Gov. John Garamendi easily won the key Democratic nomination in the special election primary held Tuesday in California’s 10th District, a strongly Democratic constituency in the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco.

The win makes Garamendi a solid favorite for the Nov. 3 general election to succeed seven-term Democrat Ellen O. Tauscher , who won a series of dominant victories in the 10th District before resigning in June to take a high-ranking State Department post.

With all 14 candidates regardless of party running on a single ballot, Garamendi had 27.6 percent of the vote. State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, his closest Democratic competitor, had 17.1 percent. State Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan had 12.2 percent, while Iraq War veteran Anthony Woods had 8.6 percent.

Yet despite his solid lead over his Democratic rivals, Garamendi ran far short of the majority vote he would need to win the seat outright and avoid a nine-week general election contest ending Nov. 3. He will be matched in this second-round contest with Republican businessman David Harmer and three alternative party candidates who were receiving tiny vote shares on Tuesday’s all-candidate ballot but are running unopposed for their parties’ nominations.

Harmer — whose father, John Harmer, served as California’s lieutenant governor — had 20.3 percent of the total vote, placing him second among all candidates. His nearest Republican opponent had 4.9 percent. But that just underscored the tough odds that face Harmer in the general election. The Democratic candidates on the ballot combined for 66 percent of the early vote count to 33 percent for all Republicans.

Those numbers conform closely to the outcomes in the 10th District’s 2008 election, in which voters gave 65 percent both to Tauscher in her House contest and Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election.

The results in the special election primary were delayed past the scheduled poll closing time of 8 p.m. Pacific time (11 p.m. eastern). In order to accommodate 10th District residents who are assisting in fighting dangerous wildfires in Southern California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued executive orders that extended voting hours in some areas. As a result, no vote counts will be publicly reported until 10 p.m. locally (1 a.m. Eastern), a delay of two hours.

The three front-running Democratic candidates — Garamendi, DeSaulnier and Buchanan — drew most of the attention throughout the primary campaign.

Garamendi won endorsements from the area’s major newspapers and entered the race with the strongest statewide name recognition.

DeSaulnier was backed by some members of California’s U.S. House delegation. Tauscher also endorsed DeSaulnier to succeed her in Congress, soon after President Obama named her in March to be his choice for undersecretary of State for arms control and international security — though the federal Hatch Act, which bars executive branch officials from active involvement in partisan political campaigns, required DeSaulnier to modify his promotion of that endorsement following Tauscher’s confirmation.

Buchanan highlighted the fact that she is the only competitive woman candidate to distinguish her from her competitors.

Woods, the other Democrat who received significant attention, positioned himself as a political outsider in the contest.

The contest was relatively close in Contra Costa County, which provides about two-thirds of the district’s total vote: Garamendi had 25 percent of the all-candidate vote to 21 percent for DeSaulnier. But while Garamendi was running a solid first in the district’s other three counties, DeSaulnier faded badly, with low single-digit percentages.