LOS ANGELES_California 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 percent of the vote, the two top finishers among the 24 in the race will meet in a June 6 runoff 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 the 34th District, where roughly half of the 305,000 voters are already represented by him in the Assembly, Ahn would face an uphill battle in a run-off. He pitched himself as a business-friendly candidate who would become the only Korean American in Congress in more than 20 years. But Korean Americans make up just 6 percent of registered voters, and it remains to be seen whether his message will play well in an exceedingly progressive district.
Despite the national attention on this race _ the first congressional primary since President Donald Trump was elected _ there were widespread reports of short to non-existent lines at most polling places. Throughout the afternoon, voters seemed to be coming in trickles rather than waves, and some campaign staffers were seen poring over voter lists in an attempt to get out the vote.
The race for the seat, vacated by Becerra when he became California's attorney general, was a four-month sprint that attracted a whopping two dozen candidates.
Half of them were women. More than a third were millennials. More than half were immigrants or the children of immigrants. And almost all of them had vowed to fight President Trump in this left-leaning progressive district, where only 9 percent of voters are registered as Republican.
At a polling place at Eagle Rock City Hall, video editor Amanda Taylor said she has 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. "With the current political climate, there are no deals to make."
The election has 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. With 20 Democrats and a Green Party member competing for the progressive vote, many think the outcome could be an indication of where the fractured Democratic Party is headed next.
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 around $35,000, outside money has flooded into the race. More than 80 percent of campaign dollars going to the candidates came from outside the district, according to a Times analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.
The spectrum of candidates running in the primary shifted the debate decidedly left: Support for a single-payer healthcare system, shows of solidarity with so-called sanctuary cities and speaking out against the Democratic Party establishment have been par for the course during the campaign.
Many viewed the race for the 34th District as a proxy fight between the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party and establishment Democrats, many of whom backed Gomez. The 34th District was one of the few statewide that favored Vermont Sen. Sanders over Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential primary.
Three main candidates ran on facets of the Sanders agenda: Arturo Carmona, Sanders' deputy political director during the presidential campaign; Wendy Carrillo, a labor activist and former journalist who spent several weeks protesting the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock; and Kenneth Mejia, an accountant and Green Party candidate who said he quit the Democratic Party over its corrupt politics.
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.
Rachel Fournier, 38, said she and three of her family members voted for Carrillo. "I didn't want to vote with the establishment Democrats," Fournier said after casting her ballot at Angelica Lutheran Church in the Pico-Union neighborhood. "I felt like she was really willing to stand up and be an unapologetic, progressive candidate."
Gomez, who touted his perfect scores from groups such as the League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood and the California Labor Federation, has argued his track record and experience can help bring a progressive agenda to Washington.
"If Jimmy Gomez is too conservative for this district, and that would've been laughable just two years ago, that should tell you where the body politic is going," Democratic strategist Eric Hacopian said in March. "There are definitely things at work here that are emblematic of fights that will take place in the next two, four, six or eight years in the Democratic Party."
The race was also influenced by a much more classic L.A. story: identity politics. Labor organizer Raymond Meza liked to point out he would be the first openly gay Latino elected to Congress. In an era in which women's marches and self-described "nasty women" are leading the protest movement, many of the 13 women running often talked about how Trump inspired them to run and fight back.
And Ahn, who would be the only Korean American in Congress and the first in more than two decades, mobilized Korean American voters and donors in his quest to make the top two.
Daniel Hong, a 38-year-old who works in the film industry, said he voted for the first time Tuesday even though he's been a citizen for about 20 years. Hong, who is Korean American, said he voted for Ahn because he wants to see better representation of Korean Americans in elected office. He said he appreciated phone calls and emails from Ahn's campaign. "That was the first time anybody has ever reached out to me for my vote," Hong said, and in a race with 24 candidates "a single vote really counts a lot."
Tuesday's outcome hinged largely on turnout. With so many candidates and an expected low turnout in the little publicized special election, the 24 hopefuls fought for small groups of voters. Some analysts have predicted turnout could be as low as 9 percent, while others think it might be as high as the recent L.A. city elections, when 21 percent of voters cast ballots. The actual turnout remained unclear Tuesday night.
