As the final ballots are counted in the Los Angeles City Council District 6 Special Election, community organizer Imelda Padilla and City Hall staff member Marisa Alcaraz are poised to go head-to-head in a June 27 runoff to determine who takes Nury Martinez’s former seat.
Padilla led the race with 25.66% followed by Alcaraz with 21.13%, according to a Tuesday afternoon update from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office that included only 23 additional ballots that were not counted in the April 7 voting update.
There are just 88 ballots left to be processed, all of which either have missing signatures or signatures that don’t match the voter, according to the Registrar-Recorder. These voters have been given instructions on how to fix their ballots, and the election is scheduled to be officially certified on April 14.
Marco Santana, in third place with 18.91%, conceded his defeat after learning on Tuesday that only 24 additional ballots were released. He said in a written statement, “I am proud of our campaign and its focus on uniting our communities and making Los Angeles a better place to live and work, and highlighting that new voices can have an impact in the Valley.”
Alcaraz declared victory over Santana in a written statement Tuesday, saying, “With only 88 ballots pending … and no other ballots outstanding, I am assured a spot in the June 27 election.” She added, “My campaign has resonated with families in the San Fernando Valley and they deserve a leader with a proven track record and experience who can generate real solutions.”
Padilla led with 3,424 votes, followed by Alcaraz with 2,819 and Santana with 2,523, according to the Registrar-Recorder’s office. With only 88 ballots uncounted, Santana could not make up the roughly 300 votes Alcaraz held over him.
On April 7, Padilla declared victory in the primary election, and her volunteer senior advisor Michael Trujillo said on Tuesday that he felt good about her chances in the June runoff against Alcaraz.
“We feel confident and positive about the voters believing in Imelda Padilla’s vision for CD-6 in terms of providing solutions on homelessness, on how we increase public safety and really invest in our infrastructure,” said Trujillo.
Former City Council President Martinez resigned from her city council seat following a leaked racist audio recording in October 2022, which then prompted the Los Angeles City Council to call for a special election to fill her empty seat.
With losses conceded and victories declared, the countdown is officially on to the runoff election in June. And with just 10 weeks to go, Padilla and Alcaraz are jumping back into campaign mode.
Both candidates are Latino women with a long history of political engagement.
Padilla has a deep connection with San Fernando Valley communities and has served on the Sun Valley Neighborhood Council and Los Angeles Valley College Foundation Board and also worked as a field deputy for the City of L.A. and as an organizer for Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.
Alcaraz brings a great deal of institutional knowledge as she has worked within City Hall for 15 years and is currently the deputy chief of staff and environmental policy director for City Council District 9 Councilmember Curren Price.
Trujillo thinks the years Padilla spent connecting with community members will give her an advantage.
“When you compare Imelda’s resume of 20 years of working in the district doing things for working families and college students and communities, versus her opponent Marisa Alcaraz, who has been at City Hall in one building that entire time, I think Valley voters will will see the difference and choose Imelda to be their next representative,” he said.
Alcaraz, however, feels that she brings a lot to the table thanks to her extensive legislative experience, as well as the insights she would bring as the first single working mother to serve on the Los Angeles City Council if elected.
“My entire career has been based on fighting for working families like my own,” she said. “This includes raising the wages for tens of thousands of workers; creating more than 3,000 units of affordable and permanent supportive housing units and bringing a new effective homeless prevention program to the city with services in Van Nuys.”
Alcaraz also noted that she was proud of her work to secure funding for park upgrades and to implement a community-based policing program.
Voters will decide who they want as their CD-6 representative on June 27.
The Primary Special Election was marked, as special elections typically are, by low voter turnout — just 11.4% of registered residents.
With the field of candidates whittled down to two, Trujillo expects to see more people vote in the run-off.
“Most voters, if they are invested in a primary, they are absolutely invested in the general election,” he said. “And then both candidate campaigns are going to be knocking on doors and calling voters to get more people out (to vote) that are supporting their candidacies, and so turnout will likely tick up.”