Food Trucks? Candidate Wins Election

Betsy Butler

The results are in and they show that Betsy Butler prevailed in the 53rd Assembly District race against local Tea Party founder Nathan Mintz. There is no way to know how many votes Butler received from food truck supporters in a district which includes cities such as Torrance, Lomita, the beach cities, El Segundo, Marina del Rey, and parts of Los Angeles at the northern tip of the district.

The SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association, which represents over 60 food trucks, started backing Butler during her Democratic Party primary run and continued during the general election. According to Matt Geller, Vice President of the association, “She sees the benefit of food trucks in that area.”

Butler, 47, a Marina del Rey resident, will succeed term-limited Democrat Ted Lieu. She survived a competitive eight-candidate primary in which she was forced to spend heavily to counter a well-financed special-interest campaign targeting her years working as a fundraiser for California’s environmental nonprofits and state trial lawyers association.

The race in the 53rd Assembly District was the only federal or state contest in the South Bay without an incumbent identified by prognosticators as fairly assured of re-election.