Former congressional candidate Elan Carr to run for county supervisor

Following an unsuccessful bid for Congress in November, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Elan Carr told the Journal on March 10 that he will run in 2016 for Los Angeles County Supervisor in the county’s northernmost 5th District. He made the decision public Thursday morning.

In November, Carr, a Republican, ran against Ted Lieu, a Democrat, for the House of Representatives in the state’s majority Democratic and heavily Jewish 33rd Congressional District, to replace Henry Waxman, who represented the district in Congress for 40 years. Carr won 40.8 percent of the vote against Lieu’s 59.2 percent, with 183,000 people casting ballots. Carr currently lives in Beverly Hills with his wife and three children; he said his family will move to the 5th District and are currently looking for a home there.

The county’s northerly 5th District is largely rural, leans conservative and has very few Jewish residents compared to areas like Beverly Hills, West L.A. and most of the San Fernando Valley. Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, a Republican, currently represents the district but will be forced to leave in 2016 due to term limits. Kathryn Barger, Antonovich’s chief deputy, also is running for the seat and has already secured Antonovich’s endorsement. 

“Losing [the congressional] election is now giving me an opportunity to hold an office where I can make a far greater impact on the daily lives of our residents,” Carr said in the March 10 interview, contrasting the work he hopes to do as a supervisor with what he would expect to accomplish in Congress.

The 5th District includes parts of the northern San Fernando Valley as well as Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena — cities that are mostly Democratic and urban. But it also includes the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita, where voters tend to support Republicans. The two candidates in the November 2014 elections running in California’s 25th Congressional District (which overlaps significantly with the county’s 5th District) were both Republican.

The only other L.A. County Supervisorial seat up for grabs in 2016 is in the heavily Democratic 4th District, currently occupied by Don Knabe.

“One thing [Elan] demonstrated when he ran for Congress is that he’s a very formidable candidate, even in an environment in which the odds are stacked against him,” said John Thomas, Carr’s chief campaign strategist. Thomas characterized the county’s 5th Supervisorial District as “moderately right-leaning” and a “good fit for Elan’s identity.” In 2014, Carr raised more than $1.5 million for his House race, nearly as much as Lieu.

The County Board of Supervisors includes just five supervisors, who wield enormous political power in governing a county of 10 million people. The five “kings,” as the supervisors are sometimes called, impact everything from social services and labor law, to business regulations, transportation and taxes; they oversee an annual budget which went above $26 billion in the 2013-2014 fiscal year.

As Carr did in his congressional run, he said that he will again focus on fighting crime as a central issue — many of his campaign materials highlighted his career as a criminal gang prosecutor.

“Given the increase in crime, I want to be able to hold an office where I can protect the citizens, the residents of Los Angeles County,” Carr said. “Protecting people doesn’t just mean handcuffs and jail cells, it also means pressing for education reform, having classrooms that take care of kids and having an economy that creates opportunity within L.A. County.”

Carr also said that, if elected, he would push to create a friendlier business environment in the county to help encourage existing companies to remain here, as well as new businesses to move in. 

In his race against Lieu, Carr stressed his resolutely pro-Israel bona fides to Jewish audiences. In the 5th District, though, which has far fewer Jews than the 33rd Congressional District, Carr is unlikely to emphasize a Jewish and pro-Israel message in the same way.

Thomas said, though, that all L.A. County Jews should still care about Carr’s candidacy, regardless of the district in which he’s running.

“Every supervisor on the board has an equal vote. They are supervisors for all of Los Angeles County,” Thomas said. “Anyone who lives in Los Angeles County should care.”