Cedillo Favored Over GOP’s Kim in Runoff
Turnout is expected to be light in today’s special election to fill the vacant seat in the 46th Assembly District, officials said Monday.
Perhaps 20% of voters in the district, which includes parts of the Eastside as well as downtown, are expected to turn out for a runoff election that Democrat Gil Cedillo is heavily favored to win.
Registered Democrats in the largely Latino district outnumber Republican voters 4 to 1. Running against Cedillo, a former union organizer, are Republican Andrew Kim, an attorney, and Libertarian Patrick Westerberg, a computer repair technician.
The Assembly seat became vacant when Democrat Louis Caldera resigned Sept. 2 to join the Clinton administration.
In a Nov. 18 primary, Cedillo outpolled Los Angeles school board member and fellow Democrat Vickie Castro by a 2-1 margin.
Cedillo’s campaign received a solid boost from organized labor and others who targeted 8,000 new voters--many of them Latino--with the message that Cedillo was best suited to oppose Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s get-tough policies on illegal immigration.
Kim, who lost to Caldera in 1996, was the top Republican vote-getter in the November primary.
Westerberg, the Libertarian, received 1% of the vote in November. He nonetheless is in today’s runoff.
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