Andrew Golis

The exit polls turned out to be fairly accurate. Antonio Villagairosa won the first round of voting with 33% of the vote. Current Mayor James Hahn barely defeated Bob Hertzberg (23.6%-22.2%) to make the May 17th runoff a rematch of the 2001 LA Mayor’s race. Villagairosa would become the first Latino Mayor of LA since 1872 should he defeat Hahn in his second attempt.

However, Hahn also finished second in the first round in 2001, and later went on to victory after attacking Villagairosa as a soft-on-crime liberal. Villagairosa did not fire back in the two-person race and lost to Hahn, the then mild-mannered city attorney with the appeal of his well-respected family name (his father marched with Martin Luther King). This time around Hahn has more baggage with his controversial tenure as Mayor. However, this year he has organized labor’s support, which he did not have in ’01 (though Villagairosa appears to have won the rank and file vote in the first round exit polling).

Winning the City’s African American vote will be crucial for Villagairosa. Black voters – who made up about 17% of the electorate Tuesday – voted overwhelming for Parks, the former police chief whom Hahn declined to support for a second term. With Parks now out of the race, Villagairosa needs to win the African American constituency considerably, and he can win the race. I’ll keep you west coasters updated over the next few weeks.