Four years ago, Robert Luna went from being a little-known retired lawman to an unlikely political force — pushing Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva into a runoff in the June 2022 primary.
Luna went on to beat Villanueva in the general election. He’s now seeking a second term running the nation’s largest sheriff’s department. But the tables have turned. This year, it was Villanueva who forced Luna into a runoff, and he’s angling to take back his old job in Tuesday’s election.
Whoever wins will be charged with a long list of priorities, including navigating tensions with the federal government over immigration enforcement and helping keep millions of people safe during the 2028 Olympic Games.
This time, Luna has a record to champion — and defend. After four years in the Hall of Justice, he is pitching himself as a steady hand working to restore the relationships and respect that he says Villanueva had tarnished, leaving a hobbled and atrophied department in his wake.
Villanueva, on the other hand, depicts the department’s Luna era as a sweeping failure that has left morale low, deputy jobs unfilled and criminals unpunished.
It’s a stark clash between two very different personalities and platforms.
On the campaign trail
Villanueva showed up early at the Burbank Realtors Assn.’s event space on Magnolia Boulevard, with a stack of campaign signs under the arm of his brass-buttoned navy sports coat.
The former sheriff stood on a low stage and presented a vision of an L.A. County that was thriving when he left office nearly four years ago, but has since gone to the dogs on the back of ineffectual leadership and poor decisions.
After years of fiery appearances on Fox News and a sharp rightward turn that alienated some of his core Democratic supporters, Villanueva’s demeanor with voters that September afternoon was disarmingly warm and casual. But his rhetoric hasn’t softened. If anything, he has sharpened his message since the primary, escalating his claims about the chaos that will reign if Luna wins a second term.
Villanueva railed against Luna’s homeless policies and disaster management capabilities. The former sheriff criticized his successor for presiding over a significant uptick in both overtime spending and sworn vacancies since 2022.
“The department is in free fall. My motto is ‘Help is on the way,’” Villanueva said, prompting nods of affirmation from the three dozen or so professionals in attendance. “The department will not survive four more years at the current rate it’s going.”
Then he fielded questions from members of the audience, who raised concerns about tenant evictions and taxes in between trips to the buffet.
Tony Rodriguez, a Republican state Senate candidate in the San Fernando Valley’s 20th District and U.S. Army veteran, said he saw the former sheriff as a stronger leader than Luna, and one who inspired more confidence in the deputies under his command.
“Leadership starts up here, but that leadership trickles down to the troops on the ground,” Rodriguez said. “Nobody wants to go to war with a general that is going to sit in the rear … I want one that’ll go into war with me.”
Minerva and Jose Corral of Corral Investments & Realty said they preferred most of Villanueva’s policies over those of Luna, particularly around the sheriff’s department’s handling of evictions. Villanueva said he would work to streamline the process and beef up what he described as the “skeleton crew” dedicated to evictions.
But the Corrals also said they weren’t convinced that returning the former sheriff to office was the solution.
“You remember when he was sheriff last time?” Minerva Corral said. “It was very combative. They were, like, brawling at Tuesday meetings.”
Jose quoted an old song by The Who to sum up his feelings about the race.
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” he said.
Villanueva had intended to participate in a planned tour of homeless encampments in downtown L.A. later in the day. But the air conditioning in his BMW had gone out on the way to Burbank, so the former sheriff decided to instead attempt what he called the “Hail Mary” feat of driving himself and his wife, Vivian, a retired Sheriff’s Department veteran herself, home without temperature control.
‘You have to have relationships’
From Luna’s perspective, the Sheriff’s Department under his predecessor was marked by turmoil within and without.
Whether mending broken ties with county supervisors or striving to avoid antagonizing government agencies, journalists and accountability bodies, Luna says he has spent much of his tenure rebuilding trust and connections.
“In order to be effective in local government, you have to have relationships,” he said in a recent interview, noting that the Board of Supervisors “controls my budget” so it’s imperative that he plays nice with them. Villanueva, according to Luna, is “100% ineffective in that arena.”
Both men led the county through historic calamities. Villanueva was sheriff when COVID-19 brought L.A. County to its knees in 2020; Luna held the role last year when the Eaton and Palisades fires ravaged vast swaths of the county, including unincorporated Altadena and Malibu — both patrolled by his department. Experienced politicians with thousands of hours of shaking hands and speaking at community functions under their belts, they each have a distinctive approach to the job.
A law-and-order firebrand who once defied subpoenas to address concerns about deputy gangs within the Sheriff’s Department, Villanueva can come off as less focused on his relationships within government and with the public, and more interested in cultivating competence and camaraderie within the department.
It’s a characterization he’s encouraged over years of clashes with officials and detractors and his repeated claims that the department has been crippled under Luna by staffing shortfalls, budgetary mismanagement and lack of confidence.
Luna remains further above the political fray, favoring plain-spoken assertions about his commitment to the rights and safety of county residents, deputies and inmates alike.
Tacos in East L.A.
On Oct. 23, Luna stepped out of a large black SUV with tinted windows in the parking lot of King Taco in East Los Angeles.
He ordered a burrito before telling a story from his elementary school days, when he moved to a house a couple of blocks away from the legendary taqueria, which at the time was still just a taco truck.
Luna’s late mother, whom he described as “hardcore Mexican, best cook in the world,” wouldn’t let him join the long lines the truck drew, telling him it was a waste of money when you can make tacos at home.
“So this was, like, off limits,” he said. “But I was always curious.”
Now, Luna can’t seem to go anywhere in this neighborhood without being recognized. As he waited for his food, several people asked to take pictures with him and shared their thoughts about his performance as sheriff.
Rafael Nolasco grew up in East Los Angeles, graduated from East Los Angeles College and still lives in the area. As a first-generation Mexican American and accountant from the same part of town as the sheriff, he’s a bread-and-butter Luna supporter. So is Mike Aguilar, who also grew up in East Los Angeles and sports a Raiders tattoo on his forearm.
Both men see Luna as a role model for making so much of his humble beginnings, and also because of what he’s done in office.
“He’s trying to make a difference,” Aguilar said. “Nothing’s done 100% perfect,” he added, “but you know he is trying, and that’s what we need. The streets are a lot safer, I believe.”
Yet some of Luna’s strongest critics — including Villanueva, but also members of county oversight bodies and organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California — argue that his tenure as sheriff has been less even-keeled than the version the sitting sheriff and some of his supporters describe.
Luna, his department and the county are involved in a bitter legal battle over access to records related to three use-of-force incidents. The Civilian Oversight Commission subpoenaed the unredacted documents in February 2025, but the Sheriff’s Department has yet to hand them over, even after a new state law expanded oversight bodies’ access to confidential records.
Villanueva claimed that his opponent was purposely delaying the records’ release until after the election. Luna, citing the position of the county counsel, said his hands are tied while a “meet and confer” process plays out between Sheriff’s Department unions and the county.
While Luna has at times locked horns with the Inspector General’s office, the oversight commission and criminal justice reform groups, his tenure has been far less tumultuous than his predecessor’s.
Villanueva initiated a criminal investigation of a Los Angeles Times reporter before walking it back amid widespread condemnation. He still defends the public corruption unit he created within the Sheriff’s Department, despite concerns among government watchdogs that its actions — including an early morning raid in 2022 of the home of then-Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, a vocal critic of Villanueva — were politically motivated.
“We created a public corruption unit, and we did the very first investigation on what was nonprofit fraud, and that was the tip of the iceberg,” Villanueva said after his September campaign event in Burbank.
Luna, who quickly disbanded the controversial unit after he took office, said he is “more apt” to refer public corruption cases to the California Department of Justice or the FBI.
“I don’t believe that we should handle that in house because the appearance of either being biased, politically motivated is too high,” he explained.
Luna has a decisive fundraising lead, bringing in about $729,000 in campaign contributions between Jan. 1 and Oct. 17, versus $242,000 for Villanueva. And Luna captured 44.2% of the vote in June’s primary, more than double Villanueva’s 21.7%.
Unlike 2022, there have been no televised debates. The two finalists are the same as four years ago, and their core messages haven’t changed much. On Tuesday, the electoral results will reveal which one L.A. County voters prefer.
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