Results
Primary election
The primary election for Mayor was held on April 10, 2001. Villaraigosa finished first, with 30 percent of the vote. Hahn was second with 25 percent of the vote. City elections in Los Angeles are nonpartisan; the top two vote-getters advance to the runoff if no contender reaches 50 percent.
The two-round system is a voting method used to elect a single winner, where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate. However, if no candidate receives the required number of votes, then those candidates having less than a certain proportion of the votes, or all but the two candidates receiving the most votes, are eliminated, and a second round of voting is held.
Riordan had endorsed his Senior Advisor and Parks Commissioner, businessman Steve Soboroff, to replace him. Soboroff, the only prominent Republican in the race, finished third with 21 percent of the vote. Also competing in the primary election were longtime Los Angeles City Council member Joel Wachs, United States Representative Xavier Becerra, and then-California State Controller Kathleen Connell. They finished with 11, 6 and 5 percent of the vote, respectively.
Steve Soboroff is President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, a member of the Board of Directors of the Weingart Foundation, and past Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Playa Vista. In September 2011 he was appointed by the California Science Center to be the Senior Advisor to the museum in its project with NASA to bring, and permanently exhibit, the Space Shuttle Endeavour to the CSC. He is Chairman of the Maccabiah Games Committee of 18, a member of the Board of Directors of the Macerich Company (NYSE), and is widely known as the foremost collector of typewriters which were previously owned by famous individuals.
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.
Joel Wachs is president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York City. He was for thirty years a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council, where he was known for his promotion of the arts, his support of gay causes, his advocacy of rent control and other liberal measures.
The Los Angeles Times made a dual endorsement of Hahn and Villaraigosa in the primary election, while the City's other daily newspapers, The Los Angeles Daily News and The Daily Breeze endorsed Soboroff.
Los Angeles mayoral primary election, April 10, 2001 [1] [2] [3] | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± |
|---|
| Democratic | Antonio Villaraigosa | 152,031 | 30.43% | |
| Democratic | James Hahn | 125,139 | 25.05% | |
| Republican | Steve Soboroff | 106,189 | 21.25% | |
| Democratic | Joel Wachs | 55,016 | 11.01% | |
| Democratic | Xavier Becerra | 29,851 | 5.97% | |
| Democratic | Kathleen Connell | 24,062 | 4.82% | |
| Independent | Francis Dellavecchia | 1,769 | 0.35% | |
| Independent | Martin Luther King Aubrey, Sr. | 965 | 0.19% | |
| Independent | Melrose Larry Green | 860 | 0.17% | |
| Socialist Workers | Wendy Lyons | 813 | 0.16% | |
| Independent | Rob Black | 789 | 0.16% | |
| Independent | Bob Tur | 656 | 0.13% | |
| Libertarian | Joe Shea | 645 | 0.13% | |
| Independent | Addie Mae Miller | 540 | 0.11% | |
| Independent | Steve Mozena | 316 | 0.06% | |
| Total votes | 499,641 | 100.00 | |
|---|
| Turnout | 511,521 | 33.53% | |
|---|
| Registered electors | 1,525,350 | | |
|---|
General election
Riordan switched his endorsement to Villaraigosa in the general election. Despite the popular Republican Mayor's endorsement, as well as the endorsement of the Los Angeles Times, Villaraigosa was unable to capture a majority. Hahn won the general election on June 5, 2001 with 53.53 percent of the vote, to Villaraigosa's 46.47 percent.
Soboroff and Becerra remained neutral in the general election. Wachs endorsed Villaraigosa.
James Kenneth Hahn is an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, Hahn was elected the 40th mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. He served until 2005, at which time he was defeated in his bid for re-election. Prior to his term as mayor, Hahn served in several other capacities for the city of Los Angeles, including deputy city attorney (1975–1979), city controller (1981–1985) and city attorney (1985–2001). Hahn is the only individual in the city's history to have been elected to all three citywide offices. He is currently a sitting judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
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