Eight days after election day, the same update of LA County votes that clinched Karen Bass’s victory as LA’s first female mayor also gave Republicans their 218th seat in the House of Representatives, as incumbent Mike Garcia beat challenger Christy Smith — a strikingly contradictory message that was echoed throughout the county as well as the nation, as insurgents and insiders both claimed victories. While consummate insider Tim McOsker won handily here in the 15th district, Unite Here organizer Hugo Soto-Martinez ousted two-term incumbent Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell in the 13th. At the county level, West Hollywood Councilwoman Lindsey Horvath defeated state senate leader Bob Hertzberg to become the only renter on the LA Board of Supervisors, and County Sheriff Alex Villanueva was defeated by Robert Luna, but Holly Hancock, running a second time for a county judge seat, was the only one of four “Defenders of Justice” leading in the vote count.
Eleven to 1. That’s how much Bass was outspent by her billionaire developer opponent, Rick Caruso, a lifelong Republican turned last-minute Democrat for the purpose of running for mayor.
Typically, he engaged in one last blast of gaslighting as he conceded. “I’m proud of the work we did to engage long-neglected communities, giving voice to the unheard,” the billionaire said. In real life, Bass is a healthcare worker turned community activist turned politician, who’s worked her whole life with the folks Caruso was talking about. Caruso, an upscale developer who stole the homelessness issue from Joe Buscaino, has never built a single unit of affordable housing in his life.
In contrast to Caruso’s Trumpian “I alone can fix it” campaign narrative around housing and homelessness, Bass stressed the kind of collaborative approach she’s practiced for more than 40 years, and city voters approved Measure ULA to generate the necessary funds.
“My administration will bring everyone to the table. The challenges we face affect us all, and all of us must be a part of our solutions,” Bass said in her post-election statement. “Los Angeles is no longer going to be unaffordable for working families — good jobs and affordable housing construction are on the way.”
Soto-Martinez sent a similar message. “We ran this campaign to build community power for workers, immigrants, the unhoused, people of color, young people, renters, and all of us who have been neglected by our city officials,” he tweeted. “Now, we’re bringing this movement into City Hall.”
Measure ULA is projected to generate $900 million annually for subsidized housing development, housing acquisition and rehabilitation, rent assistance, and other housing — and homelessness-related purposes, paid for with increased taxes on the sale of Caruso-styled developments: properties valued at $5 million or above.
“We won this campaign because Angelenos decided that it’s time to roll up our sleeves and invest in proven solutions to our chronic housing and homelessness crises,” Yes on ULA campaign co-chair Laura Raymond said in a statement two days before the mayor’s race was called, when a nearly 12-point margin assured its passage. “This measure was drafted and put on the ballot by the community, not politicians or government, and thousands of people joined our campaign to ensure this win,” she said. “This victory is a victory for the community organizations who rallied to pass this measure,” said co-chair April Verrett, president of SEIU 2015. More than 230 organizations have endorsed it.
While Soto-Martinez’s victory echoed Bass’s in the 13th district, Traci Park’s win over Erin Darling in the 11th did the opposite. Like Caruso, she was a long-time Republican turned Democrat. She was a signature-gatherer in the failed campaign to recall Mike Bonin, whose compassionate approach to homelessness has reduced it by 38.5% in the last year, the most in LA, while Darling campaigned to continue Bonin’s legacy.
In the House, Garcia claimed victory with 54.19% of the vote on the 16th, close to the 55% he got when first won a special election to the seat in 2020. But Smith came within 333 votes of ousting him in the general election that year, and the new district is more Democratic — Biden won it by 10 points. So Smith was justifiably frustrated by the lack of party spending in support, especially since outside group spending favored Garcia 13-1, the vast majority attacking Smith, rather than supporting Garcia.
“Our campaign got next to zero outside resources to fight this battle,” Smith said in a lengthy Twitter thread three days before the race was called. “In many ways, we are victims of our 2018 success in this district. The GOP has now modeled their approach from billboards to field on what Dems did to flip the seat from Steve Knight,” she wrote. “They made huge investments that unfortunately weren’t matched by our side in terms of spending, nor strategy.” This was despite the fact the district was one of just a handful of Republican-held seats rated as toss-ups. “This was THE cycle that The Citizens United Decision came home to roost,” she wrote. “Going forward if we do not advance legislation that gets dark money spending in our elections under control, we are destined to have more cycles where we fear for the future of our democratic institutions.”
While Bass was similarly outspent, she benefited from robust, unified Democratic support, from President Joe Biden down to the grassroots. But her race was the exception, not the rule. Horvath, for example, had strong local support, including the County Democratic Party, while Hertzberg was supported by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, all of whom cruised to re-election with massive majorities in the county and the state. But he also had $858,000 in support from law enforcement groups, including the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, while Horvath opposed Sheriff Villanueva’s re-election.
In short, the battle over minority rule via money, misdirection, and division was partly won, partly lost, and will surely continue with even greater intensity in the next two years.