Bass, Caruso In Dead Heat; Villanueva Aims To Avoid Runoff: LA Primary

MARINA DEL REY, CA — Tuesday is the last day to vote in California’s primary, and the stakes couldn’t be higher in Los Angeles, where voters will choose a new mayor for the first time in eight years while also deciding whether to stick with controversial county Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

One of the most competitive congressional races in the nation is LA County’s new 27th Congressional District, where U.S. Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) — an incumbent of the former 25th District — finds himself fighting for re-election in a district that now skews decidedly Democratic.

Additionally, voters will cast ballots for three seats on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education (Districts 2, 4, and 6), eight seats on the City Council (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15), and city attorney and controller.

District 11 is the wealthiest district in LA and includes Venice, Mar Vista, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Ladera, Del Rey, Playa del Rey, Westchester and West Los Angeles/Sawtelle. In this race, eight candidates are vying for the open seat vacated by Mike Bonin, who opted to not seek re-election after the recall against him failed to qualify with enough votes. Those candidates include Erin Darling, Greg Good, Allison Holdorff Polhill, Midsanon “Soni” Lloyd, Jim Murez, Mike Newhouse and Traci Park.

At the county level, voters will choose a sheriff and an assessor, along with two seats on the Board of Supervisors (Districts 1 and 3).

At the state level, voters will decide whether to give Gov. Gavin Newsom a second term and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla his first full term in office after he was appointed to the position in 2021 to fill the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Kamala Harris. Attorney General Rob Bonta is also running for his first full term in office after being appointed to fill the position vacated by Xavier Becerra, who left to serve in the Biden administration.

Voters will pick a new state controller, as Betty Yee is termed out. Other statewide races include secretary of state and lieutenant governor.

Voters have had the better part of a month to choose among the crowded field of contenders thanks to the state’s new universal vote-by-mail system. Ballots were mailed out by May 9, and ballots will be counted if postmarked by election day or dropped off at a ballot drop box, voting center or county elections office by 8 p.m. June 7.

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Early voting centers opened May 28, and in-person voting will be allowed until polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday. In-person voting locations will offer same-day voter registration, replacement ballots and voting machines to those who need it.

Voters can find their early voting centers and ballot drop boxes here. And they can track their ballots here to make sure their vote is counted.

For a complete guide to statewide races, see the CalMatters California Election 2022 Voter Guide.

Los Angeles Mayor’s Race

If any of the nine candidates vying to be mayor of Los Angles can garner more than 50 percent of the vote on June 7, the job is theirs. However, if the polls are to be believed, the race to helm the City of Angels will likely go to a runoff vote Nov. 8.

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso appears to have edged out Congresswoman Karen Bass in one recent poll. A survey released by the Communities United for Bass for LA Mayor 2022 in late May showed Caruso with support from 37 percent of likely voters, compared with 35 percent back Bass, Bloomberg reported.

Caruso has paid extensively for the edge, spending more than $25 million on his campaign — the bulk of it to blanket the airwaves with his message. His message is that he can reduce crime, combat corruption at City Hall and house the homeless — mainly with 30,000 additional shelter beds.

“I’m running for mayor because the city we love is in a state of emergency, rampant homelessness, people living in fear for their safety and politicians at City Hall just in it for themselves,” Caruso said in a campaign video. “My only special interest is Los Angeles, the city we love. It’s why I’ll work for a dollar a year, and I won’t take a dime from special interest.”

In the same video, Caruso claims he cut crime by 30 percent in his appointed role as the president of the Police Commission.

By the time Caruso had doled out $23 million on his self-funded campaign, Bass spent just $700,000, according to campaign filings.

Dwarfed by Caruso’s ad spending, the Bass campaign appears to be sparing its war chest for the general election — with good reason. The same poll that puts Caruso ahead in the primary shows Bass winning a head-to-head matchup if other liberal candidates such as Councilman Kevin de León exited the race. According to the poll, 48 percent of voters prefer Bass while 39 percent favor Caruso in a hypothetical general election matchup. In the primary, liberal candidates such as de León and Bass split the vote while Caruso, a former Republican turned Democrat, would seem to have the city’s more conservative voters to himself among the top contenders.

The field winnowed considerably in the final weeks of May. Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer dropped out and endorsed Bass, while Councilman Joe Buscaino dropped out and endorsed Caruso as did entrepreneur Ramit Varma.

The Los Angeles Times endorsed Bass, calling her the battle-tested leader the city needs in times of crisis.

“Bass brings nearly two decades of governing experience, including helping lead the state through extremely difficult times as the Assembly speaker during the Great Recession and state budget crisis. She has a reputation as a thoughtful, pragmatic, collaborative leader who never loses focus on the core reasons she entered public service — ensuring that no segment of society falls through the cracks.

"As a physician’s assistant working in the emergency room, Bass saw how homelessness, substance abuse, untreated mental illnesses and violence were upending people’s lives… That community-informed activism helps explain why Bass, as a congresswoman, has rejected calls to 'defund the police,' why she helped draft the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that would have directed millions of dollars toward reforming police practices, and why she now proposes maintaining the size of the LAPD force while also investing in crime prevention programs.”

Conversely, Caruso nabbed the endorsement of the Los Angeles Daily News, which praised his success in developing popular shopping malls such as The Grove, The Americana and the Palisades Village.

“If ever there was a time for an outsider candidate, this is it,” the Daily News concluded. “Caruso offers a track record of working with stakeholders in many communities and successfully completing projects despite regulatory and other hurdles.”

The full slate of candidates also includes Craig Greiwe, Alex Gruenenfelder, John Jackson, Andrew Kim, Gina Viola, Mel Wilson and Kevin de León also running in the primary. Buscaino, Feuer, and Varma will still appear on the primary ballot even though they withdrew from the race and endorsed other candidates.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Race

Villanueva was elected in 2018, becoming the first challenger to unseat an incumbent sheriff in Los Angeles in more than a century. He rode to power on a reform agenda with the endorsement of the Democratic Party. But the party’s power brokers quickly soured on him as he butted heads with county supervisors and scandals mounted along with independent investigations into everything from deputy gangs to allegations that department leaders tried to cover up a video showing a deputy kneeling on the head of an inmate for three minutes.

He made national headlines when he announced the investigation of a Los Angeles Times reporter, a political opponent, and the inspector general over the leak of the damming video.

This time around, Villanueva doesn’t have the endorsement of the county’s Democratic Party, but neither do his eight challengers.

His calls to push out homeless encampments in Venice and Hollywood and his opposition to progressive District Attorney George Gascon may be resonating with voters due to widespread anxiety about rising crime.

RELATED: LA County Sheriff Comes To Venice, Moving Into LAPD Territory

A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that 64 percent of Californians say homelessness is a big problem in their part of the state.

In the nation’s most populous county, the Spanish-speaking incumbent remains popular with Latino voters, according to one poll.

A survey of voters in the city of Los Angeles by BSP Research found that Villanueva is viewed favorably by 55 percent of Latino voters, and about 40 percent of Los Angeles County residents of voting age are Latino, Politico reported.

Despite the department’s controversies, Villanueva remained the candidate with the name recognition.

“Villanueva has been controversial to put it mildly,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney. “He has several different challengers, and the question is whether any of them will break out of the pack.”

The sheriff has raised more than all of his challengers combined. Frontrunners among his challengers include Chief of the Los Angeles Airport Police Cecil Rhambo, former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, State Parole Agent April Saucedo Hood, and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Commander Eli Vera.

The full slate of candidates includes several ranking sheriff's department officials including Capt. Matt Rodriguez, Capt. Britta S. Steinbrenner, Lt. Eric Strong, and Sgt. Karla Yesenia Carranza.

For a complete guide to statewide races, see the CalMatters California Election 2022 Voter Guide.