Forecast for L.A.'s mayor race: paltry turnout
By Ben Welsh and Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times
More than 2 million people can vote for mayor of Los Angeles. But if history is a reliable guide, as many as 1.6 million of them will skip Tuesday's election.
That low turnout could mean that the winner will garner fewer votes than any newly elected mayor since the pre-freeway era of the 1930's, according to a Times analysis of L.A. election records.
The city's next mayor will be hard-pressed to exceed the 233,427 votes that Fletcher Bowron won in 1938 when he ousted incumbent Frank Shaw in a recall spawned by rampant corruption. The population of Los Angeles has more than doubled since then. To avoid that 1938 milestone, it would take a surge in new voters or a lopsided win by one of the candidates.
The new mayor, City Controller Wendy Greuel or Councilman Eric Garcetti, will oversee nearly $8 billion in spending each year on police, fire and ambulance services, street repairs, trash pickup, and the city's water and power systems, among many other things.
But in the March primary, turnout was a paltry 21%, and experts do not expect it to rise much Tuesday.
