Antonio Villaraigosa won a crushing victory in the Los Angeles mayoral race by spurring a record Latino turnout and broadening his support across the city among voters of every stripe, who deserted incumbent James K. Hahn in droves.
For all the significance of the victor's breakthrough as the first Latino elected mayor of modern Los Angeles, ethnic pride was just part of what powered his 17-point win.
By overwhelming margins, Villaraigosa captured Democrats, liberals and younger voters, according to a Times exit poll. He also won a majority of San Fernando Valley residents, union members and Jewish voters. His support among blacks more than doubled from what he won in his 2001 mayoral contest against Hahn -- although it fell just shy of half.
But it was Villaraigosa's huge support among Latinos that turned his victory into a landslide, ushering Hahn out of office -- effective July 1 -- after a lone term. The city councilman sparked a surge in Latino turnout and won 84% of those voters.
For the first time in modern Los Angeles, the Times Poll found, the Latino share of the city's electorate reached 25% -- up from 22% in the Villaraigosa-Hahn contest four years ago, and up from a mere 10% in the 1993 mayoral race.
The city's heavily Latino Eastside produced the strongest turnout in the city, preliminary election results show. Although the city clerk expects the final tally to show citywide turnout at about 33%, on the Eastside it ran as high as 38% and could climb further as the last batch of votes are counted.
"Clearly this energized Latinos more than people's perception of the campaign would have indicated," said Raphael Sonenshein, a political science professor at Cal State Fullerton.
For Hahn, the election marked a collapse in support across the spectrum of voters. Even among groups that clearly favored him over Villaraigosa -- Republicans, conservatives, Asian Americans and voters age 65 and older -- Hahn ran weaker than he did four years ago, according to the exit poll.
Voters had a strongly favorable view of Villaraigosa, but even those who backed Hahn were unenthusiastic about their choice. Two-thirds of Villaraigosa supporters voted for the councilman because they liked him and his stands on issues. But for Hahn, about 6 in 10 supporters said they saw him as "the lesser of two evils." Nearly 3 in 10 Hahn backers offered no positive reason for their vote.
