Update: California Assemblyman Gil Cedillo won Tuesday's election to the City Council from District 1, defeating José Gardea, the chief of staff of termed-out Councilmember Ed Reyes, by a margin of 796 votes.
Cedillo won 8,543 votes (52.44 percent), while Gardea won 7,747 (47.55 percent), according to final results posted online early Wednesday by the office of the City Clerk for all the 56 precincts in CD 1.
"It was a good race—we thought we were going to win and we did," Arturo Chavez, a key campaign aide to Cedillo, told Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch.
Asked why he thought voters chose a Sacramento insider over an experienced City Council staffer from Northeast L.A., Chavez said: "People wanted a change in the direction the district was going."
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Previously: California Assemblyman Gil Cedillo gained a 746-vote lead over his opponent José Gardea in unfinished election results for the hotly contested Council District 1 Tuesday.
With 52 of the 56 precincts in CD 1 reporting and 92.85 percent of the votes counted, Cedillo got 8,038 votes, compared to Gardea's 7,292, according to election results posted online by the office of the City Clerk.
Cedillo, who is being termed out of the California legislature, steadily expanded his lead over Gardea, deputy chief of staff to termed-out Los Angeles Councilmember Ed Reyes.
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