Hahn, Napolitano to face off in General Election

Signs along Hermosa Beach urge voters to cast ballots for Steve Napolitano for County Supervisor. Photo

 

Signs along Hermosa Beach urge voters to cast ballots for Steve Napolitano for County Supervisor. Photo

Signs along Hermosa Beach urge voters to cast ballots for Steve Napolitano for County Supervisor. Photo

Congresswoman Janice Hahn and Steve Napolitano will continue their campaigns for Don Knabe’s Fourth District seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors following the results of the June 7 Primary Election.

Hahn, current representative to California’s 44th district and daughter of longtime supervisorial stalwart Kenneth Hahn, took 47.3 percent of the vote. Napolitano, current Knabe deputy and a former mayor of Manhattan Beach, had 36.9 percent. Whittier’s Ralph Pacheco finished a distant third, taking 15.7 percent of ballots.

A candidate could have won the seat outright had one had taken more than 50 percent of the vote.

The result was unsurprising for the camps of both Hahn and Napolitano.

“I don’t think we ever expected [to win outright]; we always thought that with three people in the race, mathematically, it would be a challenge,” Hahn said.

Coming into the race, Hahn held an inherent advantage. Not only is she a sitting member of the U.S. Congress, she’s also a part of a prominent Los Angeles political bloodline, alongside her father Kenneth, a former Supervisor; uncle Gordon, who sat on the state Assembly; and brother James, the former mayor of Los Angeles and current Superior Court judge. That fact was not lost to Napolitano.

“We’ve been fighting conventional wisdom from the start…we’re the David to her Goliath,” Napolitano said, noting that political experts expected Hahn to win the race outright. “We went from nothing to 36 percent, and with the momentum of the day, we’re looking to capitalize on that.”

Both candidates are excited for their prospects moving forward toward the November 8 general election. “We have a very broad base of support, from Republicans and Democrats, to business owners, labor unions and environmentalists,” Hahn said. “I think we’re going to build on that and keep building consensus over the Fourth District.”

Napolitano is eager to woo Pacheco supporters to his side moving forward. “We’ve been running strong in the areas that support him, and we want to pick those folks up,” he said. “We’re going to represent them, along with the rest of the district. We’re the hometown team.”

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