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CD14 ELECTION - Call it the spray of air freshener greeted with relief throughout L.A. The hard-fought victory by young housing attorney Ysabel Jurado over troubled career politician Kevin de Leon in Council District 14 — by a convincing 15-percent margin — dispersed the stink of two years of scandal from his racist and homophobic remarks on leaked audio in Oct. 2022 and arrogant refusal to resign despite prolonged protests.
The sources of stench went even deeper. On October 7, in the midst of Jurado’s runoff campaign to oust the incumbent, the previous office-holder, José Huizar, reported to federal prison to serve a 13-year sentence after pleading guilty to crimes ranging from extortion to tax evasion, having converted the 14th District council office and some of its staff over several years into a den of racketeering. For many residents of the district, stretching from Boyle Heights and Downtown up through El Sereno to northern Highland Park and all of Eagle Rock, the malodorous rot of Huizar’s corruption heightened the urgency of a fresh alternative, which Jurado personified.
But this is L.A. Common sense does not determine local election outcomes; campaign spending and coalitions do, with voter awareness and participation, character of candidates, and the quality of local news coverage as contributing factors. Given the foul smell engulfing de Leon, it can be tempting to view Jurado’s breakthrough — becoming the first woman ever to represent CD 14 and the first Filipina or Filipino American ever to win a seat on L.A.’s Council — as preordained. That is false and fails to appreciate crucial strategies and key takeaways from her landmark victory.
Here are 4 lessons from Ysabel Jurado’s win:
Early Start
As a first-time candidate, Jurado launched her campaign in the spring of 2023, a year before the March 2024 primary. Her near-decade of legal practice addressing needs of families to secure their housing and fight evictions and displacement furnished her valuable relationships throughout the 14th District. So did her involvement with East Area Progressive Democrats (EAPD), the largest grassroots club in the county with members concentrated in Northeast L.A.
EAPD hosted meet-the-candidate gatherings, house parties, and fund-raising receptions with Jurado in Boyle Heights and Eagle Rock. Throughout the year, and before friendly audiences large and small, Jurado refined her personal story and her stump speech as a candidate.
Progressive Democrat Ysabel Jurado embarks on door-knocking in the days before her election victory along with Boyle Heights resident Carlos Montes, leader of Centro CSO, and School Board Member Dr. Rocío Rivas, whose district includes Downtown, Boyle Heights, El Sereno, and Highland Park. Looking on is 13th District Councilmember Hugo Soto- Martínez. Both Rivas and Montes are elected members of the central committee of the L.A. County Democratic Party.
Knocking Doors
Jurado also began her voter contact and data-driven canvassing early. In a primary election where she faced 3 incumbent politicians — not only de Leon, but also Assemblymembers Miguel Santiago and Wendy Carrillo — she resolved that her road to victory relied on establishing a firsthand bond with voters. Her rivals, from their seats in elected office, would be prone to using slick mailers to communicate with voters. Let them do that. Jurado, with COVID-era social-distance protocols expiring, promised to out-work, out-walk, and out-hussle her opponents and build solidarity with voters face to face.
In a district hungry for direct connection with its representatives, Jurado’s passion for door-knocking paid off. By the March 5 primary, the army of grassroots volunteers she and her team, led by Highland Park resident Naomi Villagomez Roochnik, had recruited reached the doorsteps of more than 85,000 residents.
When ballots in the primary were counted, Jurado bested the entire field including the trio of insiders, capturing 25 percent of the votes. She repeated her feat of door-knocking in the general election, reaching 75,000 residents. And she held true to her avoidance of slick campaign mailers, sending zero in the general as in the primary.
Housing Knowledge & Democratic Endorsement
Jurado’s life story as the daughter of undocumented immigrants in the 14th District who worked to put herself through college and law school at UCLA while raising a daughter as a single parent had yet another inspiring dimension: practical know-how on housing policy.
District residents, many of them renters and overwhelmingly Democrats, expressed enthusiasm for her nuanced, personal understanding of housing and homelessness. By April 2024, Jurado earned the endorsement of EAPD members, who rewarded her expertise on housing, with 81 percent of members’ votes.
Just six weeks later, in June 2024, she trounced de Leon in voting for the official endorsement of the L.A. County Democratic Party. Along with endorsements by Dolores Huerta, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project, L.A. School Board President Jackie Goldberg, the Democratic Socialists of America L.A., and the L.A. County Federation of Labor, Jurado carried seals of approval from the entire left-labor spectrum into the general election.
Outside spending to back Jurado totaled about $286,000, which was only about 1/4 of more than $1.1 million in outside spending to back de Leon, according to campaign-finance disclosures current through Oct. 30. But Jurado drew on a large network of small donors that allowed her to best de Leon in city matching funds, a key ingredient in her victory.
Matching Funds
Unlike her rivals, Jurado did not primarily rely on interest groups and large contributors to fuel her campaign. Instead she drew from a wide and diverse base of individual small donors. Many of them came from within the 14th District. Jurado did the hard work of calling, communicating her value proposition as a candidate, and cultivating a relationship with dozens and dozens of them.
This strategy brought the added benefit of voter buy-in. Donors of $50 and $100 proliferated. Donors even at the $5 and $10 levels told their family members, friends, and neighbors about whom they supported and why, fueling added voter support.
Prioritizing small donors within the city of L.A. also helped Jurado leverage the matching-funds system. It is unique to city contests and exists to level the playing field between longtime politicians and newcomers and to deter undue dependence by candidates on favor-seeking interests. Offering a sixfold match on donations by L.A. individuals, matching funds can turn a $129 contribution into the $900 maximum. With this carrot, the system also wields a stick by capping how much candidates can spend overall on their campaign.
In the general election, Jurado outpaced de Leon on matching funds, $217,000 to $187,000. That incremental advantage was meaningful, given his overall fund-raising advantage of $475,000 to $358,000. Among outside independent expenditures, efforts backing Jurado were outspent by those backing the incumbent by about a 4-to-1 ratio. Still, she prevailed overwhelmingly.
Antidote of hope
Yes, L.A. is unique. A true microcosm of American politics we are not. The matching-fund system for city contests, for one, is a point of distinction and pride; it makes us special.
But in the same way that the resurgence of Donald Trump, riding an openly anti-democratic campaign that embraced misogyny, racism, and fascism back to the White House, holds unmistakable warnings to reshape Democratic strategy in the next four years, the local campaign blueprint that Ysabel Jurado applied with such success in Eastside and Northeast L.A. sends a countervailing message of hope. Jurado’s victory highlights the dividends of directly engaging voters and focusing on progressive solutions to the housing crisis as a core message of economic justice for Democratic campaigns. Throughout California and the country, Democrats should take careful note.
In addition, Jurado’s emphases on starting early, cultivating and leveraging small donors, integrating massive numbers of volunteers, and refusing to buckle to intimidating rhetoric by pro-police groups, when that intensified in the last two weeks of her runoff, are also key ingredients in her win.
Like a familiar recipe for Thanksgiving, such is the delicious aroma of change now wafting through Council District 14. It is all the more pleasing for its authenticity and its invitation to come together, with plenty of seats at the table, to share in its fulfillment.
(Hans Johnson is a longtime leader for LGBTQ+ human rights, environmental justice, and public education. His columns appear in national news outlets including USA Today and in top daily news outlets of more than 20 states. A resident of Eagle Rock, he is also president of East Area Progressive Democrats (EAPD), the largest grassroots Democratic club in California, with more than 1,100 members.)
