Muratsuchi trumps Scotto, holds on to Assembly seat
Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi addresses supporters at his election night party. Photo
Democratic incumbent Al Muratsuchi retained his seat in the California State Assembly’s 66th District by besting Republican challenger Frank Scotto.
According to the California Secretary of State’s unofficial results, Muratsuchi won 71,439 ballots, 57.8 percent of the vote, against Scotto’s 52,218 votes, for 42.2 percent.
“I’ve been waiting to say this, but…tonight, we proved that lawn signs don’t vote,” Muratsuchi said to the crowd of supporters at the Torrance Redondo Beach Marriott on Tuesday night.
Scotto’s swell of support, as represented by the fact that his campaign ran out of lawn signs after printing 5,000 to distribute to supporters around the South Bay, was not enough to topple Muratsuchi, who won his seat for the third time.
Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon was in attendance and recalled the days following Muratsuchi’s 2014 loss to Republican David Hadley.
California Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon addresses supporters of Al Muratsuchi, who watches from the right. Photo
“What I remember was that his concern wasn’t about himself or his career, but the extent to which the community would get the representation it deserves,” Rendon said. “So he worked his ass off, and all of you worked your asses off to make sure Al would get back, and he’s going back again.”
By 11 p.m., about a mile and a half away at his campaign headquarters, Scotto and his supporters were glumly tearing down the night’s decorations.
“It is what it is, and this is what politics is,” Scotto, a former Torrance mayor, said. “The best part of the whole thing is that I met so many people who care about our communities…I’m not talking about the politics of it, but people who care about our state and our country.”
The challenge, and where Scotto’s campaign fell short, was in motivating conservative-minded voters.
“We discovered we have a lot of people who are registered decline-to-state, and are conservative, but they’ve given up on the political process,” Scotto said. “Getting them to the polls was challenging for us, and we didn’t do that, by the numbers we’re seeing.”
From a Redondo Beach perspective, most of the city’s elected officials made their way to Muratsuchi’s party to congratulate the assemblyman, including Mayor Bill Brand and Council Members Christian Horvath, Todd Loewenstein, Laura Emdee, and John Gran.
Nils Nehrenheim, however, was down the street at Scotto’s party. He made the decision to endorse Scotto late in the campaign, in response to Muratsuchi’s endorsement of Horvath’s reelection for Redondo’s upcoming March 2019 municipal election. Nehrenheim endorses District 3 challenger Candace Nafissi.
“It’s a lack of confidence that I found because Al chose politics over policy,” Nehrenheim, who leans Libertarian but presides in a non-party seat. “At the end of the day, he’s choosing someone who doesn’t represent the community.”
However, the Redondo Beach electorate clearly favored Muratsuchi over Scotto, with 62.5 percent of the vote.
“We have been confident throughout the election season that we represented South Bay values, and that my opponent was too extreme for the South Bay,” Muratsuchi said, using Scotto as a proxy for the Trump administration.
He looked to continue his anti-Trump battle in his next term, as he celebrated national victories that caused a Democratic majority in the federal House of Representatives.
“Unlike that schizophrenic night when we won our election but lost the White House, tonight we can celebrate and know that while there were some disappointments, we have laid the groundwork to take our country back in 2020,” Muratsuchi said.
In the meantime, he’s going to pursue “South Bay priorities”: good jobs, good schools, safe neighborhoods, and a healthy environment.
“We represent the beautiful diversity that is the South Bay, and the one thing that has brought us together is that we are here to stand up to Donald Trump,” Muratsuchi said.