LOS ANGELES _ California state Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez was elected as Los Angeles' newest member of Congress on Tuesday, defeating attorney Robert Lee Ahn in a sharply contested battle for the 34th Congressional District.
Gomez will take the seat vacated by Xavier Becerra, who became state attorney general earlier this year, and will represent one of the poorest, most immigrant-heavy districts in the state, where the effects of President Donald Trump's policies on immigration and health care will be acutely felt.
His election continues a decades-old tradition of Democratic Latino representation in the district, which stretches from downtown Los Angeles to Boyle Heights and incorporates Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Koreatown. If Ahn had won, he would have become the second Korean-American elected to the House and the first Korean-American Democrat.
Shortly before Ahn called to concede, Gomez, 42, thanked hundreds of cheering supporters for their efforts to get him elected to Congress and pledged to represent all of his constituents after a hard-fought battle with fellow Democrat Ahn.
"Today, our community said yes to California values, our progressive values," Gomez said at his election party at his campaign headquarters in Highland Park. "All of you here that helped me on this campaign, we are the resistance."
The district is majority Latino and had one of the biggest declines in the uninsured population after the passage of Obamacare. Becerra, who held the seat for more than two decades, was regarded as a fierce advocate for immigrants and the poor. He resigned the seat after Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him to replace now-Sen. Kamala Harris as California's attorney general.
Although Gomez and Ahn both said they were running to represent all constituents in the district, it was expected to be a low-turnout election, and the campaigns largely targeted their own bases of support. Gomez bested Ahn for first place in the primary with 25 percent of the vote to Ahn's 22 percent. Gomez's votes came primarily from the Eastside neighborhoods he's represented since 2012, and Ahn enjoyed strong support from the west side of the district, which includes Koreatown, Chinatown and downtown.
During the runoff campaign, Ahn spent considerable time and resources registering Korean-American voters and sent massive amounts of mail to Asian-American voters, while Gomez's campaign concentrated get-out-the-vote efforts on the Eastside.
With few policy differences between Ahn and Gomez, much of the campaign centered on the candidates' backgrounds and the approach they would take as part of "the resistance" movement against Trump.
Both are the children of immigrants and talked about their working-class roots. Gomez's parents are immigrants from Mexico, and his father was in the bracero program for guest workers. They and most of his five siblings lived in the U.S. illegally but became citizens after Gomez was born in the U.S. He's spoken often about the multiple jobs his parents worked to make ends meet, and the time his childhood bout with pneumonia nearly bankrupted his family.
Ahn's parents emigrated from South Korea in 1974. His father's first job was as a graveyard shift baggage handler at Los Angeles International Airport, and his parents ran a hamburger stand at one point. Eventually his family grew their savings into a successful real estate business, which Ahn has been involved in. Aside from working as an attorney, Ahn also served as a commissioner on the Los Angeles Redistricting Commission and the city's Planning Commission, appointed both times by L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.
As a political unknown, the 41-year-old Ahn always had the bigger challenge: Gomez already represents more than half the voters in the 34th District and had received dozens of endorsements from prominent Democrats, including Becerra, Garcetti, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Jerry Brown.
Ahn cast Gomez, raised in nearby Riverside, as a carpetbagger and pitched himself as a political outsider who can better represent residents. Ahn was raised mostly on the Westside before his parents moved to the Wilshire neighborhood in his teens. He also tried to capitalize on the anti-establishment fervor that has seized both parties, calling Gomez a "professional politician" funded by special interests.
Gomez responded by touting endorsements from progressive groups and pointing to his record of supporting bills expanding paid family leave and backing single-payer health care. Those points could have been key to motivating voters in a district where Democrats make up nearly 60 percent of voters, and where Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential primary.
"If I was so establishment, I don't think Our Revolution, that was founded and is the political arm of Bernie Sanders, would actually endorse me," Gomez shot back at a recent debate. "This notion of being a corporate Democrat is just false, it's silly."
He also cast Ahn, a former Republican, as too centrist and too willing to negotiate with GOP leaders in Congress.
"In case you haven't noticed, we have a numbers problem in Congress," Ahn said at the debate. "Until we're able to take back the House, we're going to have to talk to the other side."
Both candidates said they would battle to protect the Affordable Care Act and fight against deportations that break families apart. Gomez said he would support only comprehensive immigration reform that stops funding for Trump's proposed border wall and makes permanent the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program instituted by the Obama administration. Ahn promised he would fight for a "compassionate compromise" on immigration and advocate closing immigrant detention centers.
