Candidates Haven’t Captured Many Voters’ Attention

With little more than a month left before the Los Angeles municipal election, the candidates for city attorney have yet to make much of an impression on voters, a Los Angeles Times poll has found.

Sixty-five percent of likely voters have not yet made up their minds, and those who have decided are so divided that no clear front-runner has emerged. City Councilman Mike Feuer was the choice of 15% of voters, while 11% picked Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo. Deputy Dist. Attys. Lea Purwin D’Agostino and Frank Tavelman got 6% and 3%, respectively.

But the poll, conducted among 532 likely voters from Feb. 24 through March 1, has a margin of sampling error of four percentage points, clouding any assessment of who is really in the lead.

“This race and these candidates are blank pages to voters,” said Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus. “All of these candidates have a long way to go to make themselves known.”

The candidates have been debating each other at several community forums in recent weeks, but most have not yet begun the extensive political mailings or radio or television advertising needed to reach this sprawling city’s nearly 1.5 million voters.

If none of candidates wins a majority in the April 10 primary balloting, the top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff June 5.

Feuer, who has represented the Westside/San Fernando Valley 5th District on the City Council since 1995, and Delgadillo, who heads Mayor Richard Riordan’s economic development programs, have raised considerably more money than D’Agostino and Tavelman. And, as members of Los Angeles’ political establishment, Feuer and Delgadillo could be expected to be somewhat better known to voters than either prosecutor.

Feuer did better than the three other candidates among likely voters on the city’s liberal Westside--his home base. There he received 18%; D’Agostino, also a Westsider, got 6%, Delgadillo, 5% and Tavelman 1%. Feuer narrowly leads Delgadillo in the San Fernando Valley and in neighborhoods in Los Angeles’ core. Delgadillo edged out Feuer, 12% to 9%, in the southern region of the city.

There was little difference between voters in labor union households and others--both groups expressed a small preference for Feuer over the others, although the gap between him and Delgadillo was slightly larger among union households.

The city’s racial divisions appear to have crept into the city attorney’s race, according to the poll. Feuer did best among whites--21% said he was their choice, contrasted with 6% each for Delgadillo and D’Agostino and 4% for Tavelman.

Likely Latino voters preferred Delgadillo, with 22% supporting him, while 16% chose Feuer, 7% D’Agostino and fewer than 1% Tavelman. Blacks were the most undecided--78% said they had not made up their minds--and the rest split their choices among D’Agostino, 8%; Feuer, 6%; Delgadillo, 5% and Tavelman, 3%.

There was little sign of a gender gap: Both men and women expressed a slight preference for Feuer. Among men, 16% said they support Feuer, while 14% preferred Delgadillo, 8% D’Agostino and 4% Tavelman.

D’Agostino, the only woman in the race, fared better with men than with women, only 5% of whom said they would vote for her. Fifteen percent supported Feuer, 7% Delgadillo and 1% Tavelman. However, 72% of the women polled had yet to decide, while 58% of the men said they had not made up their minds.