When Los Angeles City Council candidates Ysabel Jurado and Jillian Burgos, two progressive grassroots candidates with less money and arguably less name recognition than some of their competitors, advanced to the November general election, some wondered how they managed to outperform candidates who had far more resources.
Jurado bested Council District 14 incumbent Kevin de León in last month’s primary election by a slim margin — she received 24.5% of the vote to his 23.4% in the downtown and Eastside district. The two will face each other in a fall runoff election.
Burgos also advanced to the November ballot after capturing 22.3% of the vote in the Council District 2 primary race for an open seat in the San Fernando Valley being vacated by outgoing City Council President Paul Krekorian. Burgos will face former state Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian, who received 37.2%.
L.A. City Council District 14 candidate Ysabel Jurado poses outside her home in Highland Park on Monday, April 8, 2024. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
That two progressive grassroots candidates with smaller campaign war chests than some of their competitors survived the primary isn’t all too surprising to Bill Przylucki, executive director of Ground Game LA. The organization, which has been around since 2017, works to get progressives elected through grassroots campaigning.
In 2020, Ground Game LA members helped elect Nithya Raman, then a political newcomer who defeated incumbent David Ryu in the Council District 4 race – the first time in 17 years that a sitting L.A. City Council member lost to a challenger.
Two years later, Ground Game LA saw three more political newcomers it had endorsed for L.A. city offices get elected – City Controller Kenneth Mejia and Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martínez.
Przylucki said that in 2020 – the same year the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the nation faced a racial reckoning spurred by widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd – some people might have downplayed Raman’s victory by chalking it up to “a weird year.”
But then more progressive candidates got elected in 2022.
“I think that’s when it started to sink in for some folks in the establishment that this is real – grassroots people are not going to let gatekeepers deprive them of democratic participation,” Przylucki said.
This year, Ground Game LA endorsed Jurado and sent volunteers to work on her behalf. Przylucki said the group also recommended that people vote for Burgos, though it did not assign its members to get involved in District 2 since many of its San Fernando Valley volunteers were focused on getting Raman reelected in the highly competitive District 4 race.
Jurado and Burgos also align themselves with Democratic Socialists of America, a group that has worked to elect far-left candidates. DSA’s Los Angeles chapter has endorsed Jurado.
“Ysabel won the primary because people win campaigns, not dollars. DSA-LA knocked 8,000 doors with her this cycle because we want to transform this city into one that works for working people,” Caleb Elguezabal, who led DSA-LA’s effort to support Jurado in the primary, stated in an email.
‘Not your typical candidate’
If you ask either Jurado or Burgos about making it to the runoff, they’ll chalk it up to good old-fashioned retail politicking.
“We were committed to talking to voters one-on-one, knocking on doors,” said Jurado, who estimated that she and volunteers knocked on 85,000 doors on her way to becoming the top vote-getter in District 14 during last month’s primary election. The first-time candidate described her campaign as “people powered” and one that devoted its limited resources toward on-the-ground campaigning.
“That’s what we relied upon in order to get this far in the election, and that’s something that I think other candidates took for granted,” said Jurado, adding that she and volunteers were constantly in the community, talking and listening to voters.
Burgos, who fared better than five other candidates in the District 2 race to snag a spot in the runoff, described herself and Jurado as “not your typical candidate.”
“We think in terms of how would we want to be reached out to,” she said.
With 24.5% of the vote, Jurado, a tenant rights attorney, landed atop the leaderboard in the eight-person primary race in District 14, which represents downtown L.A. and Boyle Heights, with about 1.1 percentage points separating her from de León.
Burgos, a small business owner and member of the North Hollywood Neighborhood Council, came in second in District 2 with 22.3% — 7.6 percentage points ahead of third-place finisher Sam Kbushyan and 10.1 percentage points ahead of fourth-place finisher Manny Gonez, despite being heavily outspent by both men.
During a recent victory party at Garvanza Park in Highland Park, Jurado described how volunteers helped send out 3,000 handwritten postcards to voters. She compared that effort to “people that spent half a million dollars on savvy, glossy mailers that nobody read.”
“But when (voters) saw the handwritten postcard, they were like, ‘Wow, that’s personal. That’s real,’” she said.
Burgos’ campaign adopted a similar playbook.
Faced with limited funds, her campaign opted not to send mailers to every household but instead sent about 1,700 letters to members of the LGBTQ+ community – a “targeted audience” – to share Burgos’ personal experience at Saticoy Elementary last June when parents and LGBTQ+ advocates clashed over a school assembly at which a book-reading mentioned same-sex parents.
“I’ve had people tell me they saved those letters,” said Burgos, who was there in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Burgos’ campaign also sent 300 handwritten postcards to supporters of Controller Kenneth Mejia, who endorsed her.
Beyond that, Burgos said she and her supporters knocked on doors and attended events and town halls. Burgos pounded the pavement so much the last two weeks before election day that “I wore out my favorite pair of Brooks,” she said.
Fundraising versus voter engagement
Jurado was a first-time candidate who received more votes than the incumbent, de León, and two state assembly members, Miguel Santiago and Wendy Carrillo. The two legislators had arguably greater name recognition than newcomer Jurado. Some who followed the race wondered if Carillo’s drunk driving arrest in November cost her votes, or if the two state assembly members took votes away from each other.
De León, the embattled council member, who sought reelection with a cloud hanging over his head for his role in a political scandal that upended City Hall in 2022, finished second in the primary and will face Jurado in the runoff election.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
“I’m grateful to the voters of Council District 14 for standing with me and putting me into the general election,” de León said in a statement. “Results matter and residents recognize the amazing work my team and I have delivered across the district so far. We will continue to work hard and focus on transforming our neighborhoods into what residents expect and deserve.”
About a week out from the March 5 primary election, Santiago had amassed nearly $273,000 more for his campaign war chest than Jurado. He also benefited from nearly $688,000 in “independent expenditures” by groups that spent money on ads and other measures to try to get him elected. None of the other candidates in District 14 had such outside groups spending on their behalf, according to campaign filings with the city.
“He had the money, but we had the people, and that’s where the power is – just talking to folks one-on-one. … That is the key to our success despite not having … like a million dollars spent on our behalf,” said Jurado, who worked out of her home and car — her “mobile office,” she called it — to avoid paying rent for a campaign office.
Santiago’s campaign did not respond to a message seeking comment for this story.
In District 2, Burgos operated on an even leaner budget than Jurado. Through Feb. 28, Burgos had spent about $62,720 on her campaign. Former Assemblymember Nazarian, the top vote-getter at 37.2%, spent about 12½ times that amount and benefited from more than $276,000 in spending by other groups who supported his candidacy.
Burgos will face Nazarian in November, having edged out Kbushyan, the third-place finisher who spent eight times what Burgos spent, and Gonez, who outspent Burgos by more than 5½ times and ended up in fourth place.
Nazarian, in a statement, referenced his first run for state Assembly in 2012, when he prevailed in spite of special interest groups who spent heavily to support another candidate.
“In every election I have participated in, even in ones where my campaign was outspent dramatically, my approach has always been the same,” Nazarian said. “Which is to run a community-based campaign that is focused on neighborhood coffees, community events, knocking on doors and talking to voters about the issues that concern them. I will be approaching the election in November in the same way.”
California Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian speaks during a ribbon cutting ceremony for Rhodes Avenue Park in Valley Glen, Friday, April 8, 2022. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Political consultant Brian VanRiper, who was not involved in this year’s L.A. City Council primary races, said one reason Kbushyan might not have made the runoff was that he and Nazarian were competing for the same Armenian voter base in the San Fernando Valley.
Generally speaking when it comes to L.A. City Council races, he said, sometimes candidates seen as frontrunners end up trailing.
And in a crowded race, especially when voters already are inundated with daily campaign mailers because there are multiple races on the ballot, it helps when a candidate finds a way to make their message stand out. One way is through door-knocking.
The power of door-knocking
“Voters get tired of hearing (campaign messages) so it becomes tougher and tougher to break through,” VanRiper said. “So how do you break through? If somebody knocks on your door, you’re forced to have a conversation.”
Przylucki of Ground Game LA agrees.
The key, he said, is to engage in authentic, personal conversations with voters.
“Face-to-face contact at the door or a phone call, even a text message exchange, is way more valuable than sending a piece of mail.” He sees mailers as having “diminishing returns” – not to mention they’re cost-prohibitive for cash-strapped candidates, he said.
“As a voter myself, I feel disposable when all I get is mail and I don’t really know how to give you (the candidate) feedback,” Przylucki said.
Burgos said her campaign engaged with the public by producing informative videos about local issues or services and programs that Angelenos might find useful and sharing them on Instagram and Tik Tok – borrowing a page from City Controller Mejia’s playbook. His social media-savvy campaign helped him win in 2022.
“We’re trying to emulate (that) – just giving out information,” said Burgos, who is endorsed by Mejia and said she received pointers from him about running a successful campaign.
As the candidates look ahead to the November general election, Burgos acknowledged that the runoff will be “a different animal” now that the contest is down to two candidates. But both she and Jurado appeared ready to knock on more doors.
“Getting out the word to people is always the most important, engaging with them, finding out what they want is always my priority,” Burgos said. “When we knock doors, we ask people what they think of our district now and what they want changed.”
For her part, Jurado said, “We’re not going to stop talking to people. We’re going to make sure we continue to uplift the voices of the marginalized community.”
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