Horvath holds on in District 3 election
District 3 City Councilman Christian Horvath, speaking to a crowd during the March 5 election night party. Horvath retained his seat against challenger Candace Nafissi. Photo
District 3 Councilman Christian Horvath has secured reelection based on the post-election night vote tallies from the March 5 General Election posted by the Los Angeles County Recorder Registrar’s Office on March 8.
Horvath now leads challenger Candace Nafissi in the City Council race 1,587 votes to 1,299, for 54.9 percent of the vote, after LACRR counted 737 additional votes. This contest is a rematch of the pair’s previous face-off in 2015, which Horvath won by 13 votes.
“At this time, it appears I can’t catch up,” Nafissi said in a release. “District 3 has a host of challenges that many residents are concerned about. Never once did your concerns fall on deaf ears. I have held each and every concern close to my heart and treated your concerns like they were my own.”
“I just can’t thank you enough for your time, encouragement and your commitment to change our City…I have requested a meeting with Councilmember Horvath to ensure that your challenges are relayed from me to him.”
Horvath said that the two are scheduled to meet next week to discuss issues, and he plans to include the concerns she brings forward with the list of issues that he’s collected.
“I have a spreadsheet put together with resident concerns — usually from those that aren’t necessarily emailing or calling me, or posting on NextDoor — that I’ve been collecting and take to city staff,” Horvath said.
He’s still absorbing his victory, Horvath said, but is looking forward to returning to the normalcy of non-campaign life. His next challenge is engaging those same voters that he doesn’t necessarily reach by his usual means of newsletters and public meetings.
“The vast majority of residents are busy with their lives…the stuff that keeps a family constantly on the run, until someone like me comes to the door and asks if there are any questions or concerns on their mind,” Horvath said. “I feel like the challenge we keep running into is that people are unaware until something is completed or done…I feel we could be doing a better job reaching out, and I’m going to start thinking outside the box.”
According to an email from the County to City Clerk Eleanor Manzano, the only ballots left to process by Friday evening were those that had yet to be picked up from the Post Office and any unsigned ballots that may pertain to Redondo’s races.
However, Manzano didn’t expect a substantial amount of ballots to be tallied from the County’s Friday evening postal pickup.
“Typically, a handful of ballots is what I’ve seen coming in on a Friday, based on the last two elections,” Manzano said.
Manzano’s prediction held up; by the second ballot counting update on March 12, vote counts for the District 3 race are unchanged.
In a release from LACRR, there are still approximately 170 vote-by-mail ballots from various elections across LA County that are left to be counted as of March 12.