Sanchez in an Uphill Race Against Padilla as Vote Nears

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 is using the same strategy that got him nearly twice the votes Sanchez received in the primary election last month: deploy, with the help of labor unions, a massive field force to call and visit probable voters, union members and young people and get commitments they will vote for him.

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

In fact, Sanchez is trying to take a page from her rival’s book, setting a goal of doubling her field operations and spending much more time going door-to-door to establish a personal 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, she adds, “I’m closing the gap.”

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

“I’m confident,” Padilla said of his chances of winning June 8. “But I’m not taking it for granted. 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, the political consultant for Sanchez. Gray-Barkan said the campaign is working hard to close the gap before June 8 by pounding the cement and spreading her 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 both he and Sanchez targeted voters with a propensity to not turn out in large numbers.

Godinez said Padilla wisely targeted a larger universe, including voters who were young and Latino and lacked a history of voting but were persuaded by Padilla’s 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 to the general election 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 their own volunteers out on election day, but Padilla also had 300 volunteers provided independently by the County Federation of Labor, an umbrella organization for 320 unions representing 700,000 members.

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

Just over 13,000 people voted in the primary, so the federation’s involvement was potent.

The result: while overall voter turnout was 25%, turnout by union members contacted by the federation was 42%, said Fabian Nunez, political director for the federation.

Sanchez has the backing of some individual unions, including the United Farm Workers. She is talking to the UFW about providing volunteers for the campaign, but the union 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, the head of the federation, told him the group’s help in the runoff will be similar to its effort in the primary. The group plans to spend $48,000 on five mailers, and put 20 volunteers on nightly phone banks, Gray-Barkan said Contreras told him.

Nunez said the federation is making a big push in the runoff for Victor Griego in the council’s 14th District, but hopes resources won’t have to be diverted 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, that I’ve seen,” Gonzales said.

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

Sanchez, 52, has emphasized she was working before Padilla was born and has two decades as president of the social service 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 down the stretch has continued to hit on Padilla’s backing from interests outside the district, including the Eastside political machine of 14th District Councilman Richard Alatorre.

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

Padilla plans to continue to hammer at the theme he has closer ties to the district, bragging that he grew up in the district, went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to get an engineering degree but returned to the northeast Valley to work to make it better.

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.

“I’m proud of my experience, but more than anything, I have lived the challenges and the problems of the district first-hand,” Padilla said Friday. “That perspective is absolutely necessary to have to solve the problems.”

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.”

And 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.