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American Morning
Turnout Vital to Los Angeles Mayoral Election
Aired June 05, 2001 - 11:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Turnout could be the key to today's mayoral election in Los Angeles. Matea Gold is a political reporter with "The Los Angeles Times" and she's joining from out L.A. bureau to talk more about the election.
Matea, good morning, thanks for joining us.
MATEA GOLD, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": Good morning, great to be with you.
KAGAN: What kind of turnout is expected today in L.A.?
GOLD: You know, this is really a watershed election for Los Angeles, No matter who wins tonight, there's going to be a Democrat in the office for the first time in eight years. Turnout's going to be key. Only about a third of Los Angeles voters usually go to the polls for municipal elections. So, that means it comes down to just several thousands votes. So both candidates are working very hard to make sure they turn out their base today.
KAGAN: Every vote counts. Either candidate would -- would do better from a high turnout?
GOLD: I think that both of them. I for Antonia Villaraigosa, however, it's especially key. He said last night at the end of a 19- hour day of campaigning that he is hoping to get the turnout up to 40 percent. It was only hovering around a third in April for the first round of the election.
So, I think he's really counting on turning out voters who don't usually go to the polls. His campaign has been one that's reached out a lot to the young people as well as to people who are new to this country.
KAGAN: Let's talk about what this represents for the city of Los Angeles. You have in Villaraigosa a man who represents the Latino population, one is that growing and looking toward the future. In James Hahn, you have a man that represents the past. His father, Kenneth Hahn, a very powerful man in Southern California politics.
GOLD: Absolutely. I mean, what's interesting in this race really is we've had these two very strong ethnic groups finding themselves mostly on opposite sides of the fence. If Villaraigosa actually wins, it would be a historic moment for Los Angeles. It would the first time in 129 years that we have a Latino mayor. The last time, this city was kind of a dusty outpost when that happened.
So he is really counting on Latinos getting excited and coming out to the polls. However, Latinos are 40 percent of the city right now, but only about a fifth of the electorate, and he has really run a campaign emphasizing his inclusiveness, and some wondered if that has actually dampened his appeal to his base.
KAGAN: Yes, I heard he's been criticized about that from the Hispanic that he hasn't been playing to them enough.
GOLD: He's made the argument, look, people know me there. I grew up on the East Side, a predominantly Latino community. I represented that area. I've needed to go out and prove myself to other parts of the city, which he really has done. Many people are impressed he's gotten this far and won all these endorsements from Republicans and Democrats alike. He's showed very strongly in both the West Side and the Valley, a predominantly more upper-class, middle-class white communities during the first round of the election. But he really needs to excite people in his community and our latest poll showed that some Latinos are actually divided about who will be the best mayor.
KAGAN: And as you mentioned off the top, either way that this one turns out, Los Angeles is going to end up with a liberal Democrat for a mayor, which is a big change from the outgoing mayor, Richard Riordan. How did that happen? How did you go from Republican to a liberal Democrat?
GOLD: Well, Los Angeles is a very Democratic city that went overwhelming for Gore and Lieberman in November, and I think that a lot of big cities in the '80s -- actually in the '80s and '90s actually went Republican and might go back Democrat now. We'll see what happens. But Los Angeles definitely is headed in that direction.
Riordan was kind of anomaly in Los Angeles politics. He was a moderate Republican. He came in at a time of an economic crisis, a crisis in racial relation says. Both Hahn and Villaraigosa have very similar positions on issues like education, housing, economic development.
Because of that, their attempt to differentiate each other has come down to a very nasty race, and I'm afraid it's caused a lot of bitterness on all sides, and Hahn has really tried to emphasize what he sees as failings in Villaraigosa's stances on public safety, and Villaraigosa has really rejected that and said that he is fear mongering and Los Angeles voters, I think -- I'm afraid have been very turned off by the latest, last few rounds of this campaign.
KAGAN: Well, we will be tracking the outcome and also the turnout. Matea Gold from "The Los Angeles Times," thank you so much for your insight on this mayor's race.
GOLD: Thank you.
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