November 8, 2024 -- The United slate on Friday widened an all but insurmountable lead that will give Santa Monica's political establishment a 6 to 1 majority on the City Council.
With approximately 2,400 more local votes counted Friday, top vote-getter Dan Hall added 1,101 votes, bringing his total to 17,554, according to tallies released by the LA County Registrar at 4:42 p.m.
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Fellow United slate candidate Ellis Raskin was second with 17,461 votes, followed by Barry Snell with 16,698 and Natalya Zernitskaya with 16,660 in the race for four open Council seats.
Friday's tallies further widened the gap between Zernitskaya and Mayor Phil Brock by 156 votes, with Brock, who is heading the rival Safer Santa Monica slate, now needing 1,314 votes to catch up.
Brock declined to concede shortly after the latest results were updated. "I am not going to do anything," the Mayor told the Lookout.
"I'm going to wait until all the votes are in (to see) if something happens and there's a major miracle," he said. "If not I'll shake everybody's hand and move on."
Former Mayor Sue Himmelrich, a leader of the Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights' (SMRR) led establishment coalition, declared victory.
"I think it's very clear that we have won," Himmelrich said. Asked if the United candidates would declare victory, she said, "The worse thing than a bad loser is a bad winner."
Councilmember Oscar de la Torre, who along with Brock spearheaded the rival Safer slate, acknowledged that he will not win the votes needed to finish fourth after falling 2,536 votes behind.
De la Torre also noted the difficulty facing Brock. "It's not totally over, but a thousand votes is hard to overcome," he said.
"I think there's a shot for him, but I think it's not possible. I would be very surprised if anything turned around."
The political establishment's efforts to regain power centered on a hard-hitting campaign to unseat Brock and, especially, de la Torre, who was poised to become Santa Monica's next mayor under a new rotating system based on seniority.
De la Torre, who won five School Board races and one of three Council races, was targeted by longtime political opponents with last-minute allegations that he made an anti-Semitic remark in a closed door meeting in 2019 that was not recorded ("Behind the efforts to unseat de la Torre," October 31, 2024).
Opponents also told voters that the Safer slate -- which includes Vivian Roknian and John Putnam -- would attempt to roll back rent control, which would require the approval of Santa Monica voters.
"There was a lot of misinformation and personal attacks," de la Torre told The Lookout Friday. "It's unfortunate they resorted to mudslinging. They ran a campaign based on falsehoods.
"We didn't do that," de la Torre said. "We ran an issues-focused campaign. We ran a campaign focused on what the residents want."
"We can walk with our heads up, but I can't say the same about the opposition," he said.
"How you run is how you govern," de la Torre said. "This is one of the most polarized electorates in Santa Monica in a long time.
"They need to try to bring people together. Based on how they handled the campaign, it was very divisive."
The political establishment is expected to sweep all four Council seats despite being outspent by major business donors in what is easily the most expensive Council race in Santa Monica history.
As the race entered the homestretch, PACs supporting the Safer slate had raised a total of $645,180, while those backing the United slate had raised $489,311 ("Council Race Shatters Finance Record," October 30, 2024.)
The establishment-backed slate relied on a well-disciplined political machine spearheaded by SMRR that includes the local Democratic Club and the hotel workers union. The Community for Excellent Public Schools (CEPS) also mounted a negative campaign focusing on de la Torre's alleged comment.
Former Mayor Denny Zane, SMRR's co-chair and one of its founders, called the top four vote tallies -- which were separated by 894 votes -- "one of the most compact" in the political organization's 45-year history.
"It kind of shows a slate discipline among voters," Zane said. "This is a demonstration that the fundamentals are back from before."
The United slate needs to pick up two seats to regain a majority of the Council it has controlled for most of the past 40 years but lost in 2021 ("Who Runs the City?" September 20, 2024).
