How Robert Luna toppled Alex Villanueva to win two terms as L.A. County sheriff
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Set us as preferred The scene at Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna’s election night party was mostly buzz cuts, dark suits, and high-gloss black shoes.Deputies and politicos chatted over festive music while the local news played silently on a big screen at El Pescador Bar and Grill in Carson, which served as Luna’s campaign headquarters on Tuesday.When the newscast declared around 9:50 p.m.
that the sheriff had won a second term, dozens of friends, family members and colleagues nursing margaritas and tacos burst into a rousing round of applause.After one of the sleepiest sheriff’s races in recent memory, Luna had again cruised to victory over his predecessor, Alex Villanueva.The vibe Tuesday night was very different than it was at the intimate gathering at his home in Long Beach in June 2022, when Luna learned that his relentless retail politics had fueled a convincing win over the rest of the field in that year’s primary.Luna has risen far from the low-income neighborhoods on L.A.’s East Side where he was raised in the 1970s and 1980s, when gangs and violence were rampant.
His parents left behind their lives in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Michoacán, immigrating to the U.S., where he was born in an East Los Angeles hospital.Luna’s wife Celines said Tuesday she didn’t believe he was going to win when he sat her and their two adult children down in summer 2021 and told them he wanted to come out of his brief retirement to run for sheriff.But “he worked 110% and he never gave up” during both the 2022 and 2026 campaigns, said Celines, who brought cheerleading pom poms to shake for her husband Tuesday evening.
“He got home after 10 o’clock most nights.He basically worked two jobs,” she said.All that work paid off Tuesday, when Luna became the first sheriff to secure a second term in L.A.
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