Greuel and Garcetti ready for a runoff

Mayoral candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti will face each other in a runoff election on May 21st, which means that the next few months will see more ads, more flyers and more heated campaigning.

Earlier today, Wendy Greuel got the support of SEIU Local 721. “My promise is not only to the people of LA, but to the labor and the business community as well,” Greuel said. “I will do my best to make sure that we can address our fiscal crisis. And that they will be at the table – they’ve got great ideas, they know better than anybody else how the city operates, and they are willing to sit at the table and negotiate. And yes, they have given up or contributed more when they know that the person at the other side of the table is going to do it with them and do it fairly.”

Eric Garcetti also spoke to the press earlier today about how he’s taken on pension reform and his campaign isn’t tainted by labor’s influence. “The pension reform that we’ve led led to hundreds of millions of dollars of real savings and protected those very same jobs to make sure we can provide city services for all of our residents,” said Garcetti. “We’re not out of the woods yet and there’s going to be a real choice in this mayor’s race between someone who is going to be beholden to these interests and somebody who can collaborate, step up and make the tough decisions to keep this city moving forward to balance the budget and to protect the city services we depend on.”

At a press conference this morning, KCRW caught up with Garcetti’s campaign strategist Bill Carrick, who shed a little light on what lies ahead in the race. “You have a map both geographically and in term of the actual way people voted, for either Councilwoman Perry or Kevin James. Those votes are the ones who are up for grabs and that’s where we’ve got to focus. Swing voters are going to be African Americans and a lot of the moderate conservative Republican voters that live in the San Fernando Valley.”

In the meantime, we’ve been poring over this interactive map from the Los Anegles Times, which has a color coded graphic of how LA voted. And, given that so few people went to the polls, you can almost find yourself on the map. KCET also has an interactive project which tracks spending in the election.

On to May 21st!