Democratic incumbent campaigns without her party’s support.
Assembly Democrat essentially goes it alone in fight to keep Valley district seat.
Democratic California Assembly candidate Al Muratsuchi recently got a boost from a powerful friend. Outside Muratsuchi’s South Bay campaign headquarters, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) praised his former colleague as a “person who understands this community” while campaign volunteers munched on tacos in the shade.
Halfway across Los Angeles County, a Democratic incumbent facing one of the toughest reelection fights of any Southern California officeholder was practically on her own. Patty Lopez, who is up against former Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra in her San Fernando Valley district, strolled through the inaugural Armenian Cultural Festival in Tujunga.
Rendon crisscrossed Southern California, stumping for five targeted Democratic candidates that weekend. Lopez, who failed to get the California Democratic Party’s endorsement this year, was not one of them.
“I’ve been blocked from my party, but my district knows who is Patty Lopez,” she said during a brief break from handing out fliers a friend had helped her translate into Armenian. “Sometimes I feel disappointed, but that’s not stopping me from doing what I need to do.”
Lopez, an immigrant from Mexico, shocked many when she defeated fellow Democrat Bocanegra two years ago after running an amateur campaign funded in part by selling tamales and pozole.
In Sacramento, she has bucked her party on issues such as high-speed rail and seems to take pride in the fact that she hasn’t made many friends there. Detractors in her district called on her to resign when she first took office and say she’s been an ineffective leader who hasn’t been willing to work with others in Sacramento. Lopez’s supporters, including other Democrats in the Legislature, have complained that other members have ostracized her.
“I’m married, I have two kids, I’m a grandma,” she told one woman as Bocanegra interrupted to shake hands with the woman and her family. Lopez put on a smile and laughed politely as he left.
Bocanegra spent the morning at a community cleanup day, then stopped by his campaign headquarters to deliver lawn signs and walk precincts before going to the festival himself.
“We are taking nothing for granted,” Bocanegra said.
In the June primary, with six Democrats on the ballot, Bocanegra received 44.4% of the vote, and Lopez came in a distant second at 27.2%.
Back in Torrance, Muratsuchi, who is challenging Assemblyman David Hadley of Manhattan Beach, called his campaign a “statewide cause.”
No fewer than 10 current Assembly members up and down the state, some from as far as Sacramento and Salinas, sent staffers to knock on doors and deliver lawn signs for Muratsuchi, who lost the seat in 2014 by 700 votes.
State and county Democratic Party committees have spent more on Muratsuchi’s race than any other — more than $2 million — in their quest to regain a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature.
Lopez says she’s had to personally appeal to members of her own caucus not to actively campaign against her. “I asked them, ‘Please don’t get in the middle,’ ” she said.
She has raised $126,000, compared with the more than $1 million Bocanegra has raked in from business groups, oil companies and labor unions. Rendon, whose reelection committee has contributed the maximum amount allowed to Lopez’s campaign, has called the situation “complicated” and “awkward.” Democratic Party rules restrict leaders from spending party resources on a candidate who has failed to win its endorsement.
“Our hands are tied,” Rendon said in an interview. Rendon said he hasn’t appeared at campaign events with Lopez, but has attended some of her fundraisers in Sacramento.
Lopez says she is a “woman of faith” and believes “100%” that voters will reelect her Nov. 8.
Los Angeles police Officer Richard Wall stops to tell her she’s doing a great job. “Just hang in there, it’s almost done,” he said, words meant to encourage her in the home stretch of the campaign.
Lopez seemed to take it differently.
“It is,” she replied. “After this, I’m looking forward to just being in the community. That’s what I love to do.”