Gomez and Ahn take early lead in District 34 race
Assemblyman and ex-city planner who ignited Korean vote top crowded pack in congressional primary.
State Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez and former L.A. city planning commissioner Robert Lee Ahn pulled out to an early lead late Tuesday in a crowded field of candidates running to succeed Rep. Xavier Becerra, according to very early returns.
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the two top finishers among the 24 in the race will meet in a June 6 run-off for the 34th Congressional District.
If their lead holds, it would be a surprising victory for the relatively unknown Ahn and a predictable one for Gomez, who had locked up dozens of endorsements from elected officials, including Becerra.
It would also be a disappointing result for those who wanted to see one of the many women candidates in the race break through, and for those who hoped one of the several Bernie Sanders associated progressive candidates would grab a spot.
While Gomez’s base of support is expected to be wide in this district in the heart of Los Angeles, where roughly half of the 305,000 voters are already repre-
the Democratic Party is headed next.
The spectrum of candidates running in the primary shifted the debate decidedly left: Support for a singlepayer healthcare system, shows of solidarity with socalled sanctuary cities and speaking out against the Democratic Party establishment were par for the course during the campaign.
In one of the few districts in California that favored Sanders over Hillary Clinton in last year’s primary, three candidates ran as self-styled “Berniecrats,” hoping to continue the Vermont senator’s “revolution” in Los Angeles. But as of late Tuesday, it appeared all three, Arturo Carmona, Kenneth Mejia and Wendy Carrillo, were trailing Ahn and Gomez by thousands of votes.
Sanders and Our Revolution, the political group he helped start, declined to endorse a candidate, leaving the self-proclaimed “Berniecrats” to fight for votes on the left. An eleventh-hour controversy over allegations of sexism leveled at Carmona by former Sanders campaign staffers further split the field.
Gomez, who was accused of being entrenched in the Democratic Party establishment at a time when such a label seemed toxic, pitched himself as a true-blue progressive with a track record to prove it. A former union organizer, Gomez frequently touted his work to help expand California’s paid family leave law, and his support of a $15 minimum wage and single-payer healthcare.
Ahn, who would be the only Korean American in Congress if elected, spent major resources registering new voters in the Korean American community and turning them out at the polls. Korean Americans cast more than 4,000 early ballots by mail, according to an analysis by the data firm Political Data. He also tried to appeal to a wider audience on the campaign trail, saying he would bring a “business sensibility to the office.”
He came from behind to out-fundraise Gomez in the most recent campaign finance figures and injected an additional $300,000 of his own money into his campaign coffers. Ahn has raised a total of $330,303, not counting his own money, while Jimmy Gomez amassed $540,360, much of it from powerful political committees and wealthy donors.
But while Gomez’s base of support is expected to be wide in the 34th District, where half of the voters are already represented by him in the Assembly, Ahn faces an uphill battle. Korean Americans make up just 6% of registered voters at last count, and it remains to be seen whether Ahn’s message as a business-friendly candidate would play well in the exceedingly progressive district, where just 9% of voters are registered Republicans.
Some had hoped that one of the newer faces running in the 34th District might break through. Of the 24 candidates, half were women, more than a third were millennials and more than half were immigrants or children of immigrants, like Ahn and Gomez. Almost all of them vowed to fight President Trump if elected.
At a polling place at Eagle Rock City Hall, video editor Amanda Taylor said she had been “pretty upset” with more moderate Democrats who have supported the president’s appointees, particularly Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. “I kind of don’t even understand why they are calling themselves Democrats,” said Taylor, 50, who voted for Sara Hernandez, a Democrat and former aide to L.A. Councilman Jose Huizar. “With the current political climate, there are no deals to make.”
The first congressional primary since Trump’s election spotlighted some of the biggest points of contention in the left’s campaign of resistance: the Affordable Care Act, immigrants’ rights and the privatization of education.
The district, which stretches from downtown Los Angeles to Boyle Heights and incorporates Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Koreatown, is majority Latino and made up of several immigrant enclaves.
In a place where the median household income of residents lingers at about $35,000, outside money flooded into the race. More than 80% of campaign dollars going to the candidates came from outside the district, according to a Times analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.
At a party at his campaign headquarters late Tuesday, Gomez said he was ready for a fierce fight with Ahn should they both make the runoff. “I suspect he is going to be able to raise a lot of money, but I believe his message and his credentials will probably fall flat,” Gomez said of Ahn. “I’m going to make a play for every community, every neighborhood, every single vote.”
Ahn, in a phone interview from his election night party, said he felt “blessed” to beat expectations.
“When we first announced our candidacy, not many people gave me a chance,” Ahn said. Of Gomez he added, “He’s a professional politician and I think that politics as usual is not working for this country. We’ll let the people decide.”