Pomona sits on the eastern border of Los Angeles County and is a Democratic Town. Except the last mayor Eddie Cortez was a Republican as was his predecessor Donna Smith. Pomona has had a GOP mayor for sometime.
That may change Jan. 10. Eddie passed away and a special election was called. Imagine campaigning through Christmas and New Years Day. Any beats on turnout?
Eleven candidates have thrown their hats in the ring. 5 are current or former council members. And three are Republicans. Republicans might have a shot at keep this Blue state city in Red state hands, but it won’t be easy.
Democrat Norma Torres is council member who planned to run for the Democrat leaning 61st Assembly District against Senator, former Assembly member and former Pomona council member Nell Soto. This opened up as she transferred some of the cash she had. See the article here. She is the top fundraiser at this point and is benefiting from independent expenditures from unions.
The story around the Republican council members gets complicated.
The Daily Bulletin has endorsed George Hunter, a Pomona Unified School District staffer and Police reserve officer. He has taken the lead in fighting sex offenders and gangs in Pomona. Interestingly, he won election to Nell Soto’s council seat after her election to the Assembly beating Soto’s daughter. Here is the endorsement.
Consultant, Mike Lewis, who has strong ties to Soto, is helping councilman Dan Rodriguez. Lewis helped Soto’s duaghter in the race against Hunter. Dan recently got into some trouble for using an unauthorized photo of Socialist Dolores Huerta. BTW, he also works for Pomona Unified. Here is the article.
Councilwoman Paula Lantz is the Old Guard’s candidate. Votes against every budget and is a fiscal hawk.
Each of the four council members obviously has a base in their own council district. Rodriguez has a problem because former Democrat council member for his area Cristina Carrizosa is running.
These are the top five. I’ve been asking who has the biggest family in the area. That could be the winning edge. So far I think Rodriguez does. A bigger factor may be the 4000 perm absentee voters.
At least in Pomona we won’t know what people are getting for Christmas until Jan. 10.