Endorsements may sway key Latino base

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.

The Cedillo campaign also has highlighted his endorsements from L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca and Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, and from state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who briefly considered running for the seat.

Although Bratton and Baca may prove to be valuable endorsements, they could be offset by Chu’s support from several police associations. And for Cedillo, Molina and Romero are probably better endorsements in terms of mobilizing the Latino base, said Raphael Sonenshein, a Cal State Fullerton political scientist who has written extensively about area politics.

Molina and Romero “are both very strong, well-regarded and very popular” among area Latinos, Sonenshein said, and may help persuade some Latinas, who might want to vote for a woman, to stick with Cedillo. He added that Cedillo’s support from a large group of state legislators and some members of Congress, mainly Latinos, helps the senator define himself as the preferred Latino candidate.

“He is running as the Latino mobilization candidate, and she is running as the crossover candidate,” Sonenshein said.

Veteran Los Angeles campaign consultant Steven Afriat, who is not involved in the 32nd Congressional District campaign, said Molina and Villaraigosa are particularly strong endorsements because they have shown they can move voters.

“Very few elected officials garner transferability with large numbers of voters,” Afriat said, but Molina and Villaraigosa can win votes for the candidates they endorse on the Eastside.

Chu also won the unanimous endorsement of the California Democratic Party and several local Democratic clubs, which could be important in the heavily Democratic district, with eight party members on the ballot, along with three Republicans and a Libertarian. If no one wins a majority, there will be a runoff July 14.

Cedillo has tried to counter that by touting his backing from the Los Angeles County Young Democrats, which could help him appeal to younger voters and stifle the competition from political newcomer and fellow Democrat Emanuel Pleitez, 26, who has surprised politics-watchers with a strong, efficiently financed campaign of volunteers and targeted mail.

A pivotal role in the election could be played by organized labor, most experts said. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which considered both Cedillo and Chu, overwhelmingly chose Chu and is putting substantial efforts into electing her, said Maria Elena Durazo, the federation’s executive secretary-treasurer.

Although the union doesn’t oppose Cedillo, its members preferred Chu’s “proactive” stance in championing causes important to labor, Durazo said, citing, among others, Chu’s legislation to improve working conditions for farm workers. The federation’s endorsement also opens another avenue for Chu to win Latino votes, politics experts said.

The organization -- whose support was crucial in the recent special elections of Democrats Laura Richardson to Congress and Warren Furutani to the state Assembly -- has spent about $150,000 to send political mailers to its members and has called upon them to walk precincts and work the phones on Chu’s behalf.

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jean.merl@latimes.com