Ridley-Thomas wins every neighborhood in the district by consolidating new voters and building on primary election lead among highest propensity voters
State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas completed his year-long, come-from-behind victory by blowing out Bernard Parks 62%-38% in the November 4th Supervisorial Election. One year ago, most polls had Ridley-Thomas twenty points behind Parks.
Ridley-Thomas’ support grew as Parks hit his ceiling
But after finishing the primary election with a 45%-39% lead, Ridley-Thomas grew his support rate by 17% while Parks’ rate support dropped one point in the November election.
Even though Ridley-Thomas has not been the 8th District Council representative for six years – and even though Parks has represented the district for those six years since, the Senator beat the Councilmember by a 59%-41% in Parks’ own 8th Council District. He beat him in the southern end of the district, the City of Carson, 60%-40%. He beat him on the Westside and the north end of the district, with margins of 64%-36% in L.A. Council District 11 (Rosendahl), 65%-35% in L.A. Council District 5 (Weiss), and 65%-35% in Culver City. And Ridley-Thomas dominated in Latino areas of the district as well, with margins of 72%-28% in Lynwood, and 68%-32% in L.A. Council District 1 (Reyes).
Targeting new voters
Entering the runoff election, polling in August revealed that Ridley-Thomas led Parks by 13% among the most likely voters. However, among those who were likely to vote in the exciting November election, Parks and Ridley-Thomas were in a near dead heat.
That’s why the Ridley-Thomas campaign focused on voters who did not vote in the primary, but who were likely to vote in November. This was no small task, because more than three times as many voters who voted in June voted on November 4th, so there were literally hundreds of thousands of voters to persuade. More than 39,000 2nd District voters registered between October 1 and the 15-day new registration cutoff before the election. Bernard Parks started out being significantly better known among these voters.
So why did these voters break so heavily for Ridley-Thomas? While he held his own among older and middle-aged voters, Ridley-Thomas dominated Parks among the younger voters and new voters who came out to vote for change. These voters were a disproportionately large part of the voters who turned out for the November election but not the June or even February elections.
Change vs. The Status Quo
All polling reflected that voters of all ages saw Ridley-Thomas as the candidate who would bring change, and as part of the next generation of leaders. While Parks had what used to be the dominant endorsements in the African-American community – including Congresswoman Maxine Waters and incumbent Supervisor Yvonne Burke – voters instead wanted a change in representation, and were not swayed by Parks’ endorsers. Parks – with the support of a majority of the Board of Supervisors – clearly represented the status quo to voters. This is not the right year to be positioned that way, especially with the failure and closure of King-Harbor Hospital on their watch. Parks worsened his problems by defending the status quo at King-Harbor at a time when it was delivering inadequate care to the community, in contrast to Ridley-Thomas who has been at the forefront in the fight for change at the hospital for some time.
The voters found Ridley-Thomas’ background as a grassroots community organizer who works for change and delivers results to be much more relevant and important. The fact that Ridley-Thomas is a legislator who approaches his job as an organizer was a very appealing feature for all voters, but especially new voters.
Parks’ tactic of running a 100% negative campaign also backfired. His attacks (and the Independent Expenditure attacks) on Ridley-Thomas on economic development were just not credible in contrast to Ridley-Thomas’ well-publicized accomplishments. And Parks focused a great deal of his resources attacking Ridley-Thomas’ supporters, especially union workers. This also proved to be a grave mistake for two reasons: 1) this district includes thousands and thousands of union and other blue-collar workers; and 2) even non-union and white collar workers, retirees and homemakers think highly of working families and unions.
In the end, polling revealed that voters realized that Bernard Parks is not who they thought he was – and they had a much better alternative by voting for a candidate who fights for change and delivers results, and a candidate who represents the next generation of leadership: Mark Ridley-Thomas.
