Kenneth Mejia declared victory over Paul Koretz just minutes after polls closed on Tuesday night.
“WE DID IT! WE WON BY 23 POINTS!” Mejia wrote in a tweet 31 minutes after the polls closed, presumably when there were still people waiting in line to vote at polling stations. Mejia still maintains a 21 point lead over Koretz as of early Wednesday morning. So far, Mejia has garnered more votes than both mayoral candidates.
Mejia’s win over Koretz makes him the first Filipino elected official, his campaign said on Tuesday night. He’s also the first POC city controller in more than a century. Koretz admitted on Wednesday that he "clearly [is] not going to win."
The Mejia campaign will surely offer a blueprint strategy for future progressive candidates. The relatively unknown certified public accountant won a contentious race by a landslide through leveraging Tik Tok and other social media platforms. He also spent money on billboards that explicitly showed how much of the city’s budget goes to policing versus other government services. The campaign provided useful resources to voters, as well, including a map of affordable housing units across Los Angeles, in offering himself as an option for the role of the city’s accountant and auditor.