It’s Uphill for Sanchez in 7th District Contest

Less than three weeks before 7th District voters decide who will represent them on the Los Angeles City Council, Corinne Sanchez is the clear underdog, and her campaign knows it.

Rival Alex Padilla, 26, is using the same strategy that got him nearly twice the votes that Sanchez received in last month’s primary election: deploy, with the help of labor unions, a massive field force to call and visit probable voters, union members and young people and win their commitment to vote for him.

“We’re really not doing anything different,” said Rick Taylor, Padilla’s campaign manager. “We’re focused on keeping up the walking and phoning.”

In fact, Sanchez is trying to take a page from her rival’s book, trying to double her own field operations and spending much more time going door to door to establish a rapport with voters.

“Definitely, with the percentages we saw in the primary, I’m going to have to get more voters out,” Sanchez said. But “I’m closing the gap,” she maintained.

Sanchez’s disappointing showing in the primary--25% of the vote to Padilla’s 48%--has hurt her campaign fund-raising. While outspending Padilla last month in the primary, Sanchez has raised just half of his total.

Padilla says he is confident of his chances on June 8. “But I’m not taking it for granted,” he said. “I’m working just as hard as I did in the primary.”

Sanchez is “an underdog, in part because of the labor campaign,” said Steve Gray-Barkan, political consultant for Sanchez. Gray-Barkan said the campaign is working hard by pounding the pavement and spreading the candidate’s message that she is the more experienced and independent candidate.

Former San Fernando Mayor Raul Godinez II, who finished fourth in the primary and has endorsed Sanchez, said that both he and Sanchez targeted high-propensity voters who did not turn out in large numbers.

Godinez said Padilla wisely targeted a larger voter spectrum, including young people and others who lacked a history of voting, but who were persuaded by his superior field forces to go to the polls.

“The secret is out. Everyone knows what Alex did. Corinne should be able to adjust,” Godinez said.

But the key may be the same as it was in the primary: field forces.

“If [Padilla] doesn’t have the troops in the field that he had in the primary, and his turnout erodes, this could turn into a real horse race,” said Larry Levine, a Sherman Oaks political consultant not involved in either campaign.

Sanchez and Padilla both had dozens of volunteers out on election day, but Padilla also had 300 volunteers provided independently by the County Federation of Labor, an umbrella organization of 320 unions representing 700,000 members.

In a district with a large working-class population, the labor group used its list of 13,000 residents who are union members to target in its get-out-the-vote campaign.

The result: While overall voter turnout was 25% in an election in which just over 13,000 people voted, turnout by union members contacted by the federation was 42%, said Fabian Nunez, political director for the group.

Sanchez has the backing of some individual unions, including the United Farm Workers, which she is talking to about providing some volunteers, but the UFW does not have the financial organization and large database of members in the district that the federation has, Gray-Barkan said.

He said Miguel Contreras, head of the federation, told him the group hopes to duplicate its efforts in the runoff. The group plans to spend $48,000 on five mailers and to put 20 volunteers on nightly phone banks, Gray-Barkan said Contreras told him.

Nunez said the federation is also making a big push for Victor Griego in the 14th Council District runoff, but hopes not to have to divert resources from the 7th District.

“We feel pretty confident that Alex Padilla has a lead, but we’re not going to sit on the sidelines with our arms crossed,” Nunez said. “We’re not pulling any punches.”

Levine is convinced Sanchez’s gender should give her some advantage, especially in a district where 53% of registered voters are women.

Antonio Gonzales, president of the Willie Velasquez Institute, a nonpartisan public policy group, agrees.

“The gender thing should be working for her like crazy, but she hasn’t yet exploited that,” Gonzales said.

He said Padilla is vulnerable because of his lack of experience. At 26, Padilla works as a legislative aide to Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) and has worked on campaigns for state Sens. Richard Alarcon and Richard Polanco.

Sanchez, 52, emphasizes that she has been working since before Padilla was born and has two decades as president of the socialservices agency El Proyecto del Barrio.

“His inexperience is a big fissure, but it’s not clear that Sanchez has been able to exploit that,” Gonzales said.

Gray-Barkan said the issues of experience and independence seem to have resonated with voters.

For that reason, Sanchez’s campaign has continued to hit on Padilla’s backing from interests outside the district, including the Eastside political machine of Richard Alatorre.

“His positions have to be in accordance with the mayor and other political power brokers downtown,” Sanchez said.

Padilla plans to continue to hammer away at the theme that he has closer ties to the district, stressing that he grew up there and returned to the northeast Valley to work to make it better after earning an engineering degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Padilla has contrasted himself with Sanchez, who grew up in San Bernardino, and although she has lived in the Valley for two decades, had to move into the 7th District to run for the council seat.

As of Friday, Sanchez had raised less than $50,000, while Padilla has raised more than $100,000, their campaigns said.

“I think it’s more a function of her supporters are regular people,” Gray-Barkan said. “It’s tough to go back to those people for more money.”

Sanchez said she is not discouraged by Padilla’s fund-raising lead.

“Money definitely is one of the factors in an election, but I don’t think it will make or break a candidate,” Sanchez said.