Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Elan Carr holds an early lead in the 5th District Board of Supervisors race against fellow Republican Mitchell Englander of the L.A. City Council, according to an internal poll conducted by the Carr campaign and provided exclusively to Breitbart News.
A telephone survey of 1,000 likely general election voters conducted by the campaign last week found 28.2% back Carr, while 18.4% support Englander. A full 53.4% of respondents remain undecided.
Current 5th District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich will vacate his seat next year due to term limits.
The Carr campaign’s poll notably leaves out several other candidates vying for the open seat: state Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), Antonovich’s current chief of staff Kathryn Barger, and Glendale Councilman Ara Najarian, all Republicans. Democrat businessman Raj Pal Kahlon is also running, as are Altadena Council member Bill Malone and South Pasadena businessman Alan Reynolds, both of whom are unaffiliated with a political party.
A Carr campaign telephone survey conducted in December of last year found Carr with 21.3% support to Kathryn Barger’s 12% and Englander’s 12.5%, with 57.3% undecided or refusing to answer.
Carr chief strategist John Thomas told Breitbart News in an email that the campaign decided to focus on the Carr-Englander matchup because the campaign views Englander as its chief rival headed into next year’s election.
“We decided to test the Carr vs. Englander matchup because that’s who this race is really between–an L.A. City politician backed by the downtown L.A. interests, and a criminal gang prosecutor who works day in and day out to put gang members behind bars,” Thomas said. “The voters spoke clearly; they’d prefer a prosecutor to a politician.”
The campaign’s internal polling found Carr leading Englander among all ethnic groups, including Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian and African-American voters, and with both Republicans and Democrats. Englander captures a great share of voters in the city of Los Angeles, but Carr maintains a commanding lead in 19 0f the district’s other cities. The candidates tie in the city of Arcadia.
The race for the influential Supervisor’s seat is expected to be tightly contested, and candidates are already snapping up endorsements at this early stage. In June, Carr secured the endorsement of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, which bills itself as the largest law enforcement organization in the state, with more than 60,000 members.
Meanwhile, Barger received the endorsement of her boss, the outgoing Antonovich.
Spokesmen for Huff and Englander said their campaigns had not yet conducted internal polling in the race. In a statement to Breitbart News, Huff campaign spokesman James Nygren said the campaign was pleased with the Senator’s progress.
“Senator Huff is thrilled by the reception he has received from both donors and district voters,” Nygren said. “They appreciate his 100% ratings from the California Taxpayers Association, his 100% rating from the National Federation of Independent Business on job creation and the fact that he worked across party lines to help keep 10,000 dangerous felons in prison.”
A spokesman for Englander’s campaign declined to comment for this story.
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