Muratsuchi and Huey win in South Bay Assembly contest

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Democrat Al Muratsuchi and Republican Craig Huey emerged as winners in a hotly contested South Bay Assembly race.

Muratsuchi is a Torrance Unified School District board member and Huey is a businessman. They bested another Republican, aerospace engineer Nathan Mintz, to face off in November for a district that both major parties believe they can win.

The contest will be one of the most competitive in the state, in a newly drawn swing district, the 66th. Voters there have toggled for decades across the political divide.

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Host to Southern California’s once-robust aerospace business, the area was home to many so-called Reagan Democrats of the 1980s.

Politically, the district mirrors the nation as a whole, its loyalties divided roughly evenly between Republicans and Democrats. Unlike most of the state, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 44% to 30%, registration here is split closely, 38% to 35%.

With Torrance at its center, the district includes the environment-conscious beach cities south of LAX, an ExxonMobil refinery and the U.S. headquarters of Toyota and Honda.

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-- Jean Merl