Los Angeles County, CA Sheriff: UC Berkeley’s new survey for the Los Angeles Times shows former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna beating conservative incumbent Alex Villanueva 36-26 in next month’s race to serve as the top lawman for America's most populous county. The school showed Luna ahead 31-27 back in August, though those numbers sampled registered voters instead of likely voters.
Both men are registered Democrats, though Villanueva has become a Fox News regular who, among many other things, has raged against the "woke left." The sheriff, though, has still gone after Luna over the challenger’s party history: Luna changed his voter registration from Republican to no party preference in 2018, while he became a Democrat two years later.
Villanueva made headlines last month when his office carried out a search on county Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who has been one of his most ardent critics, as well as others in an “ongoing public corruption investigation.” Kuehl tweeted in response, “This morning's storming of my home by deputies with bulletproof vests & tactical gear was an effort to harass, intimidate & retaliate against a public figure who has been an outspoken critic of Alex Villanueva.”
The sheriff himself said he recused himself from the case, though he gave an interview about it from a bar. Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat who is also on the ballot next month, also ordered Villanueva’s department to “cease its investigative activity and refrain from any actions in furtherance of these investigations, including public statements or court filings related to the investigations.”
The L.A. Times’ Editorial Board, for its part, noted in a piece condemning Villanueva that his raid had seized video tapes from Kuehl of “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” the sitcom she’d appeared on as a teenager in the late 1950s and early 60s., “Maybe that’s an indication of how deep L.A.’s sheriff thinks this suspected conspiracy goes — Kuehl, and her alleged co-conspirator, activist Patti Giggans, might have been planning to collude on a no-bid contract since the 1950s,” it wrote, before adding, “More likely it’s an indication of just how unhinged Sheriff Alex Villanueva has become in the weeks before voters decide if he deserves another term.”
So far, though, this story doesn’t appear to be shaping the race. UC Berkeley finds that respondents say by a 39-29 margin that the raid on Kuehl was legitimate instead of retaliation, while 32% offered no option.