Hahn Overtakes Villaraigosa in Race for Mayor

By JAMES RAINEY

May 29, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

James K. Hahn has overtaken Antonio Villaraigosa and moved into a slight lead in the race for mayor of Los Angeles, although the outcome remains unsettled with just a week to go before election day, a Los Angeles Times poll has found.

The four-term city attorney has the support of 47% of likely voters, compared to the 40% who said they plan to back Villaraigosa, the former speaker of the state Assembly. The 13% of voters who remain undecided still could tip the June 5 election, although Hahn’s lead exceeds the poll’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Villaraigosa cannot be counted out, however. He came on strong in the closing days of the election’s first round, buoyed by strong labor support to finish five percentage points ahead of Hahn. Voters interviewed for the poll said they see Villaraigosa as better able than Hahn to improve race relations.

Since the April 10 election, Hahn has moved into the lead by scoring well among the large bloc of moderate to conservative voters who picked other candidates in the primary. In the poll, voters overwhelmingly picked Hahn as the candidate they believe would be better at holding down crime.

The city attorney also leads among whites and blacks across the city and voters in the San Fernando Valley--a broad and, by historic standards, unusual coalition.

“The race remains close right now,” said Susan Pinkus, director of the Times Poll, “but an examination of the poll data shows that Villaraigosa has a tougher road in the next week if he’s going to win the election.”

The survey--conducted May 22 to May 27 and based on interviews with 857 likely voters--found the electorate divided along broad geographic, ethnic and ideological lines, with Hahn tending to combine blocs that include more likely voters. The city attorney held a strong lead, for example, among voters in South Los Angeles and in the Valley--a north-south combination expected to produce well over half of the voters in next Tuesday’s election.

Villaraigosa’s support on the Westside and Eastside of Los Angeles is not likely to produce as many votes, the poll found.

Hahn also scores near or more than a majority among self-described moderates and conservatives, who together make up a majority of the electorate. He fares well among both whites and blacks, who are expected to combine to make up well over half of next week’s vote.

Those findings are a distinct reversal of fortune for Hahn, a 20-year veteran of City Hall who saw his lead in the April mayoral election overcome by Villaraigosa’s potent combination of support from the California Democratic Party, labor unions and politicians who cross the ideological spectrum.

Although Villaraigosa has been able to hold on to his base of liberal Democrats, Hahn seems to have effectively captured the middle ground and even neutralized the former legislator’s earlier advantages among union members and Jewish voters.

The two candidates now split the union vote evenly, although Villaraigosa is counting on a large push from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor to increase his share in the final week of the race. Just one in 10 union members said they remain undecided.

Villaraigosa, meanwhile, has only a fractional advantage among Jewish voters, a group that gave him a 10% edge over Hahn in the April vote. In the latest poll, 45% said they preferred Villaraigosa compared to 42% who backed Hahn.

Supporters of the former Assembly speaker have talked enthusiastically about the power of the “new Los Angeles,” a city where they believed that a center-left, multiethnic coalition backed by labor would elect the next mayor. But the continuing strength of more established voting groups is evident in Hahn’s lead.

The city attorney leads by nearly 20 percentage points among voters in the San Fernando Valley, the vast suburban region expected to contribute about two of every five votes cast next Tuesday. White voters, who remain the city’s largest ethnic voting conglomeration even though they no longer comprise a majority of the population, also favor Hahn, by 47% to 40%, the poll found.

Soboroff Voters Go 2 to 1 for Hahn

Those findings bear out some of the predictions in April of political pundits, who speculated that Hahn was more of a centrist and therefore would have an easier time appealing to the moderate to conservative voters who gave about one-third of the first-round vote to businessman Steve Soboroff or Councilman Joel Wachs.

Indeed, those who voted for Soboroff, a Republican, are going 2 to 1 for Hahn, the poll found. Previous Wachs supporters favor Hahn, too, although more narrowly, despite the fact that the councilman last week endorsed Villaraigosa for mayor. Soboroff has said he will not endorse either candidate.

“I would normally vote for a Republican, but there are none on the ballot and Hahn comes closer to my political viewpoint than Mr. Villaraigosa would,” Audrey Watson, a 78-year-old from North Hollywood said in a follow-up interview after the survey. “I didn’t really care for either one of them but I think he is probably a little closer to me ideologically.”

Among the one-third of voters who said they thought they were being forced to choose between the “lesser of two evils,” Hahn has nearly a 30 percentage point lead.

Villaraigosa had hoped his endorsement by Mayor Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican, would help him sway many of those voters, especially conservatives. But Hahn holds nearly a 20 percentage point lead among those voters who said they supported Riordan four years ago. Asked directly about the mayor’s support of Villaraigosa, nearly seven in 10 likely voters said they would not be swayed by the endorsement.

Hahn continues to benefit from his solid base of support in South Los Angeles and in the African American community. Hahn’s father, the late county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, is a beloved figure among black voters and continues to drive many who said they will vote for Hahn next week.

Many black voters said they are happy to vote for the younger Hahn, at least in part on the belief that he will provide basic constituent services in the same way his father did.

“I voted for his dad, back in the day,” said Dennis Johnson, a manager for a telecommunications company. “I lived in a district where there was a lack of facilities and he brought them in. I think his son is very similar, a chip off the old block, so to speak.”

The Times Poll found that nearly three-quarters of African Americans plan to vote for Hahn. With few undecided, the Villaraigosa camp appears to be struggling to meet its goal of holding Hahn to little more than the 70% of the black vote he won in April.

Villaraigosa has a handy lead among his own ethnic group, Latinos, but the 57% showing isn’t nearly as strong as he will need if he hopes to pass Hahn on election day. The poll found that Villaraigosa has overwhelming support among younger Latinos, but splits the support of those 45 and older evenly with Hahn.

Latinos May Make a Late Surge

Villaraigosa may be able to count on a late surge of Latino support, however, because that group has historically picked a candidate much later than other ethnic groups. And Latinos coalesced around Villaraigosa in the last days before the April election.

For the many voters who get their information about the mayor’s race primarily through television advertising, the recent days of the campaign have offered strikingly different images.

Villaraigosa has stressed his work in the Legislature and support for public education. Hahn has attacked with ads that criticize Villaraigosa’s voting record on criminal justice issues and that argue he can’t be trusted. The most recent and provocative of those ads slammed the former Assemblyman for a 1996 letter he wrote on behalf of a convicted cocaine trafficker.

The poll results suggest that, even before the latest attack ads, the hits on Villaraigosa’s integrity were beginning to take a toll. Seventy-two percent of likely voters said Hahn is honest enough to be mayor, compared to 55% who said Villaraigosa has the integrity to do the job.

Even more dramatic is Hahn’s lead on the issue of public safety. Fifty-three percent of those polled said he would do a better job holding down crime, compared to just 19% who said Villaraigosa would be better at that task.

Two-thirds of those polled have a favorable impression of Hahn, and among those who like him, 30% cited his long experience in local government, with nearly one-quarter saying they favor him because they believe he is like his father. But the connection to the venerable Supervisor Hahn cuts both ways. Hahn’s tendency to lean too heavily on his father’s legacy was also the top reason named by those who do not like him.

For Villaraigosa, 58% of those polled said they view him positively, compared to 28% who have an unfavorable impression. Those who like him value his Assembly experience, leadership qualities and ability to build coalitions.

As election day approaches, Angelenos have a decidedly ambivalent view about the state and direction of the city--a mood that also seems to be working in favor of Hahn, who has been depicted by his campaign as the safer choice.

Los Angeles residents who said the city is headed in the right direction slightly outnumber those who thought the city is on the wrong track, and a striking 72% said the economy is in good shape. But 70% now believe an economic recession is likely, and by a margin of nearly 2 to 1, voters said Hahn can better sustain the prosperity.

The much-discussed possibility that the city would elect its first Latino mayor since 1870 has energized some Latinos and liberals, even though Villaraigosa has consciously attempted not to appeal to a single ethnic group.

Still, one in five voters said they are concerned that he would focus too much on minorities. Those people overwhelmingly said they plan to support Hahn. And among the 40% of likely voters who said immigration has been bad for the city, support is going nearly 2 to 1 for Hahn.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Decision Time

If the election were held today, for whom would you vote? *

FOR MAYOR

James K. Hahn: 47%

Antonio Villaraigosa: 40%

Don’t know: 13%

FOR CITY ATTORNEY

Mike Feuer: 40%

Rocky Delgadillo: 31%

Don’t know: 29%

* Among likely voters.