L.A. MAYOR 2013: Garcetti Leads Greuel In Polls

The runoff election for Mayor of Los Angeles is on Tuesday May 21, exactly one month from today. Former City Council President Eric Garcetti, the MadProfessah-endorsed candidate, leads former City Controller Wendy Greuel (the Bill Clinton-endorsed candidate) in three separate polls published in the race, from 7 to 10 points. However two of these surveys were the little-respected computer-generated polls by SurveyUSA, released on March 28 (47-40) and April 12 (49-40).

The much more prestigious Los Angeles Times/USC poll is the latest poll to show Garcetti in the lead:

The survey also found no sign of success for Greuel's effort to gain an edge among women by highlighting her potential to make history as the city's first female mayor. Women preferred Garcetti, 50% to 41%.

Latinos and younger voters backed Garcetti by still wider margins. The city councilman from Silver Lake has strengthened his standing in the central city and Eastside neighborhoods that he won decisively in the March primary. He has also built a solid lead on the Westside — a key target of Greuel's.

Perhaps most worrisome for Greuel, the city controller, is her failure so far to establish a base in the Valley, where the two are effectively tied. Greuel, who lives in Studio City, had hoped that audits by her office that found wasteful spending of taxpayer money would appeal to the Valley's Republicans, often a pivotal vote in L.A. elections.

Instead, Garcetti has emerged with a lopsided lead among conservatives citywide, picking up support from many of those who voted in the primary for Republican radio personality Kevin James, now a Garcetti backer.

 In fact, every single one of the major candidates in the March 5 primary election (Jan Perry, Kevin James and Emmanuel Pleitez) has endorsed Garcetti for Mayor as has almost every single member of the current Los Angeles City Council, even though Greuel was herself a Councilmember from 2002 to 2009.

To me it is very telling that the people Greuel worked with on the City Council, as well as the people she beat all are choosing someone else over her to be the next Mayor of Los Angeles.

The two are relatively similar on many key Democratic policy positions (LGBT equality, reproductive rights, environmentalism, immigration, gun control) but Garcetti would be the one who would more firmly embrace the "progressive" label. And he has already played the Mayor of L.A. (multiple times) on television:

After May 21, Garcetti can be called Mr. Mayor in real life, too.