On the day last month that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appeared at a news conference to enthusiastically back Judy Chu for the open 32nd Congressional District seat, her chief rival wasted no time trying to downplay the endorsement.
"Voters, not endorsements, are going to decide the winner" of Tuesday's special election, state Sen. Gil Cedillo said in a statement released within hours of Villaraigosa's April 22 appearance at the El Sereno Senior Center with Chu and other local officials who back her.
True. But Cedillo and Chu, both seasoned Democratic officeholders, have worked hard to line up endorsements that they hope will help them win voters in the largely working class, San Gabriel Valley-based district.
Cedillo, who headed a labor union before his first election to the Legislature in 1998, needs to rally his base of Latino voters, who make up about half of the district's registered voters. Chu, who is vice chair of the state Board of Equalization and a former member of the state Assembly, needs to draw about a third of the Latino votes on top of her base of Asians and whites, political experts say.
"Cedillo has got to mobilize his base," said USC political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, while Chu needs to show voters she has support among Latinos. And having such high-visibility Latinos as Villaraigosa and United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta in Chu's camp could "give Latino voters permission to move beyond ethnicity," she added.
Villaraigosa, for example, played up Chu's wide support among elected officials -- many of them Latino -- in the small cities and school districts in the valley, some of whom she has worked with since her own days on the Garvey School District board and later the Monterey Park City Council.
"She has been working across racial lines, she has been building coalitions, she has been the bridge between communities," Villaraigosa said.
Cedillo's statement was accompanied by a letter from another well-known official, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who touted the senator's connections to the area. She also reminded voters he had joined her to successfully buck Villaraigosa and others to get a larger share of county voter-approved transportation funds for the San Gabriel Valley.
"Senator Cedillo has the strength we need to fight for San Gabriel Valley families in Washington, D.C.," Molina said.
