Gin Makes It Official: He's Running to Replace Harman

Mayor Mike Gin announced Wednesday he is running for Jane Harman’s 36^th Congressional District seat. That means Gin and City Attorney Mike Webb are running against each other as Republicans to succeed Democrat Harman, who resigned this week to lead a Washington, D.C., think tank.

Gin, who is openly gay, hopes to combine his pro-choice, socially moderate image with a reputation for fiscal responsibility, to attract moderate voters.

Gin is serving his second term as mayor of Redondo Beach. An aerospace engineer, he was born in the South Bay and works as a field deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe.

“I’ve helped manage Redondo Beach the way I believe our country should be managed,” Gin said in a press release. “I remain a tight-fisted fiscal administrator who believes in controlling spending and reducing our deficit in conjunction with creating good jobs in a new economy. This lies at the very center of what our national resurgence requires.”

The 36th District runs from Venice and Mar Vista down to the South Bay. Gin described the 36^th District as a traditional safe haven for Democratic candidates, although he said he could pull off an upset victory by appealing to a large demographic of voters as well as what are called decline-to-state voters, or those who do not register with one of the qualified parties.

On the Democratic side, L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn of San Pedro and California Secretary of State Debra Bowen of Marina del Rey are running for the district seat, along with labor-backed candidate Marcy Winograd.