LA County Sheriff — Robert Luna vs. Alex Villanueva
Current as of · voting-clarity.org
November 3, 2026 County of Los Angeles ballot. AI-generated analysis. Your sample ballot and official voter guide are the official documents; the links below let you check each claim. This page explains what is on the ballot; it is not legal advice. Candidates' own claims are labeled as theirs.
Voting Clarity's research is done by Claude, an AI made by Anthropic. Anthropic gave no money to either candidate in this race [40].
At a glance
The race: a rematch. Robert Luna (sheriff since December 2022, former Long Beach police chief) vs. Alex Villanueva (sheriff 2018–2022). June primary: Luna 44.18%, Villanueva 21.71%.
Jail deaths: an average of 41 a year under Villanueva (2019–2022) and 40.7 a year under Luna (2023–2025). See Jail deaths by year.
Jail lawsuit: in 2025 the state Attorney General sued the county, the department and Luna (in his official capacity) over jail conditions going back many years. See Issues.
Staffing: sworn vacancies rose from 1,069 (Nov. 2022) to 1,393 (Dec. 2024); 8,809 sworn staff in Jan. 2025. Villanueva's "over a quarter of the workforce gone" is contradicted by official records. See Their claims about each other.
Crime: serious (Part I) crime rose 18.5% from 2019 to 2023, 13.8% of it by 2022; from 2022 to 2024, violent crime fell 7% and burglaries rose 12%.
Official findings: Villanueva: a 2023 county Equity Oversight Panel "Do Not Rehire" finding, which he is appealing in federal court. Luna: none found.
Key questions (evidence under Key Questions Answered):
Do their claims match the record? Only partly checkable for either.
How do they handle oversight? Both have resisted the oversight commission's subpoenas (Villanueva in 2021, Luna in 2025), for different stated reasons.
What about deputy gangs? Their approaches differ.
Who backs them? Party endorsements split along party lines. Luna: county Democratic Party, the deputies' union (ALADS, which backed Villanueva in past races), County Federation of Labor. Villanueva: county Republican Party, LA Sheriff's Professional Association, LA County Taxpayers Association.
Who funds them? None found.
Every item is cited in the sections below.
Summary
A rematch. Sheriff Robert Luna, a former Long Beach police chief, seeks a second term; Alex Villanueva, sheriff from 2018 to 2022, wants the job back. Luna beat him in 2022 with 59.8% of the vote.[1]
In the June 2, 2026 primary (eight candidates; count as of June 10), Luna led with 44.18% and Villanueva had 21.71%. With no majority, the top two meet in November.[2]
What the race is about: both men have run the department, and they describe its current state very differently.[3]
Your Vote:
Choose one: Robert Luna or Alex Villanueva. The office is nonpartisan, and the winner serves four years, through 2030.
What the sheriff does and doesn't do
Does:[3]
Polices 42 contract cities, such as Lancaster, Compton, and Malibu, plus unincorporated areas.
Runs the county jails, about 14,000 people, nearly half with some form of mental illness.
Decides how to spend a budget of about $4 billion.
Leads 8,703 sworn personnel and 5,431 civilian positions.
Sets department policy and can declare local emergencies.
Doesn't:
Patrol cities with their own police, such as Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Pasadena.
Set the budget amount; the Board of Supervisors does.
Run medical care in the jails; Correctional Health Services does.
Issues the next sheriff faces
Recruitment. The department struggles to hire. Jail deputies worked 48 to 64 hours of overtime a month in 2024. In February 2025, over 2,300 sworn and 1,900 professional positions were unfilled (vacancies plus impairments), almost 25% of budgeted staff.[4]
Deputy gangs. Groups of deputies with matching tattoos have been accused of misconduct; a 2021 Loyola Law School report found 18 such groups over 50 years.[3] Each candidate's policy: see Key Question 3.
Oversight. The county's Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission has subpoena power, and both candidates have resisted its subpoenas (see Key Question 2).
Use of force, including complaints from summer 2025 protests and incidents involving people with mental illness.[3]
2028 Olympics security.[3]
Jail conditions. A September 2025 state Attorney General lawsuit against the county, the Sheriff's Department, the county's jail health service, and Luna (in his official capacity) describes years of inhumane conditions (filth, rats, no clean water, poor medical care); the jails have been under court monitoring since 1979. It counts over 345 jail deaths since 2016, about 60% in the last four years (roughly Sept. 2021 to Sept. 2025, spanning both men's terms), and 36 in 2025 by the filing date.[5] Yearly counts: see Jail deaths by year. A U.S. Justice Department investigation of Men's Central Jail, opened September 9, 2026, covers the building's conditions, not deputies' actions, and has reached no conclusions.[6] Luna has asked the National Institute of Corrections for an outside review.[3]
Jail deaths by year (deaths in county jail custody, calendar years)
| Year | Villanueva | Luna |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | — | — |
| 2017 | — | — |
| 2018 | — | — |
| 2019 | 32 | — |
| 2020 | 38 | — |
| 2021 | 51 | — |
| 2022 | 43 | — |
| 2023 | — | 45 |
| 2024 | — | 32 |
| 2025 | — | 45 |
2016 to 2018 fall under Sheriff Jim McDonnell (19, 23 and 26 deaths), who served until Villanueva took office in early December 2018. 2022 is listed under Villanueva; Luna took office in early December 2022.[7][8]
Counts are the Sheriff's Department's own reports to the state under "County Jail" custody, excluding deaths during arrest.[9] The Attorney General's complaint gives no yearly counts, but its totals match: 309 deaths from 2016 to 2024 plus its 36 for 2025 make 345, and 2018–2022 averages 38.0 a year against the 37.8 it cites from county data.[10]
The department's own website counts slightly more because it adds court lockups, station jails and hospital deaths: 45 in 2023, 32 in 2024, 46 in 2025, and 31 in 2026 through September 21.[11][12]
The candidates side by side
| Robert Luna | Alex Villanueva | |
|---|---|---|
| Background | Long Beach police chief for 7 years; sheriff since December 2022[3] | Sheriff's deputy 30+ years, rising to lieutenant; sheriff 2018–2022[3] |
| Their claimed accomplishments | Homicides down 25% since 2023 in sheriff-patrolled areas (his website);[3] in-custody use of force down 20% in 2025 and average academy class size up 29% (his report to the oversight commission)[13] | Managed the jails through the pandemic, addressed homelessness humanely, and overhauled the body camera program[8] |
| Deputy gangs | Policy banning participation in "law enforcement gangs," effective October 2024 (see Key Question 3) | February 2020 policy on groups that promote misconduct (see Key Question 3) |
| Oversight subpoenas | Department did not send a records custodian for three 2025 subpoenas (see Key Question 2) | Did not agree to testify under oath on three 2021 subpoenas (see Key Question 2) |
| Other documented record | Named in his official capacity in the state's 2025 jail lawsuit (see Jail conditions under Issues) | In October 2023, after he left office, the County Equity Oversight Panel reviewed complaints by the county Inspector General and a Board of Supervisors justice deputy. It found charges of discrimination, discriminatory harassment, third-person harassment, inappropriate conduct, and retaliation (based on gender and ethnicity) founded and a sexual harassment charge unfounded, and recommended "Do Not Rehire".[14][15] He sued, alleging the panel retaliated for his criticism of the Board; in May 2025 a federal judge found no evidence of that, while calling the evidence against him "admittedly thin." He appealed.[15][16] |
| Endorsements | LA County Democratic Party; ALADS (deputies' union); LA County Federation of Labor; LA County Police Chiefs Association[3] | LA County Republican Party; LA County Taxpayers Association; LA School Police Officers Association;[3] LA Sheriff's Professional Association (LASPA)[17] |
Key Questions Answered
Do their claims match the record? Only partly checkable for either. Crime fell nationwide over the same period as Luna's homicide decline, so how much is due to him could not be determined.[3] Villanueva's account of his record could not be verified from available sources.[8]
How do they handle oversight? Both have resisted the oversight commission's subpoenas, for different stated reasons.
Luna (records on deputy force cases, 2025–present): In March 2025, citing county lawyers' advice that it was complying with the law, the department sent no records custodian for three subpoenas on a deputy shooting and two beatings, went to court for clarification, and asserted confidentiality for some files.[18] In January 2026 he said the department was "in a holding pattern until somebody tells us that I'm not breaking the law," citing a new state law and county lawyers' advice that the commission must first meet and confer with unions. The commission chair said this was used "as a barrier to compliance with state law."[13]
Villanueva (testifying in person, 2020–2024): In 2021 letters he said he would appear only voluntarily and would "not agree to be placed under oath"; in January 2022 the county asked a court to hold him in contempt over three subpoenas.[19] Testifying under oath in January 2024, after leaving office, he said he had been trying "to assert my rights to challenge" the subpoenas and called the hearing "a process of electioneering."[7]
What about deputy gangs? Their approaches differ. Under Luna, a policy effective October 18, 2024 bans participation in "law enforcement gangs" as defined in state law; a separate ban on "deputy cliques" had not been adopted and was in union talks as of April 2025.[20][21] Luna told the commission he had launched a department-wide initiative to eliminate deputy gangs, cliques, and subgroups.[18] Villanueva's February 2020 policy bars employees from joining groups that promote conduct violating the rights of other employees or the public; the commission noted it does not ban participation in deputy cliques.[22][21] Under oath in 2024 he said subgroups "exist everywhere" and the "key element" is misconduct; in a 2022 debate clip played at that hearing, he called deputy gangs "a political buzzword."[7]
Who backs them, and why might that matter? Party endorsements split along party lines in this nonpartisan race (see table). The main deputies' union, ALADS, now backs Luna after backing Villanueva in his past campaigns,[23] and applauded Luna's handling of the subpoena dispute over deputy records.[24] LASPA, which backs Villanueva, is a deputies' group he helped found.[17]
Who funds them? None found.
Their claims about each other, checked
Only claims that an official record addresses are listed. Crime figures are the state Justice Department's yearly counts for the Sheriff's Department.
Villanueva's claims about Luna
| Claim | Official evidence (corroborates / rebuts) | Verdict | Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| "over a quarter of the workforce gone"[25] | Rebuts: 2,897 positions (1,393 sworn, 1,504 professional) were vacant in Dec. 2024, about 16% of roughly 18,000 staff; about 22% adding 1,124 staff unable to work[26][27] | Contradicted by official record | "He's factually incorrect. He's just pulling numbers out of thin air."[28] |
| "With over 4,000 vacancies, sworn staffing levels are now below 8,000"[29] | Corroborates: vacancies plus staff unable to work totaled about 4,000 in Dec. 2024 (row above). Rebuts: sworn vacancies were about 1,400;[30] sworn staff numbered 8,809 in Jan. 2025[27] | Partly supported by official record | Same as the first row. |
| "Staffing collapsed from 9,100 to 8,000 in just two and a half years."[31] | Corroborates: sworn vacancies rose from 1,069 (Nov. 2022) to 1,393 (Dec. 2024).[32][26] Rebuts: 8,809 sworn staff in Jan. 2025 (row above) | Partly supported by official record | See Luna's first claim below |
| "an ongoing exodus of experienced personnel"[25] | Rebuts: the deputies' bargaining unit's retention rate was 94.5% in Sept. 2025, above the County's 90.8%[33] | Contradicted by official record | "We're doing so much better"[28] |
| "a tragedy of deputy suicides"[25] | Corroborates: seven sworn personnel died by suicide in 2023, and "several" current and former personnel in 2024. Not addressed: causes[27] | Partly supported by official record | "I am committed to reducing any stigma associated with mental health care"[34] |
| "a tragedy of … in-custody deaths"[25] | Corroborates: 36 jail deaths in 2025 by the September filing, "on track" for the most in 20 years;[35] 46 deaths in 2025.[13] See Jail deaths by year | Supported by official record | "LASD has also improved compliance related to the jails and Antelope Valley settlements"[36] |
| "a whopping 17.5% increase in Part 1 crimes"; "homicides increased by 46%, grand theft auto (GTA) increased by 68%, and aggravated assaults increased by 23%" (2019 vs. 2023)[31] | Corroborates: Part I crimes rose 18.5% from 2019 to 2023. Rebuts: homicides rose 32%, vehicle thefts 53%, aggravated assaults 19%; Part I had risen 13.8% by 2022, before Luna took office[37] | Partly supported by official record | "I definitely want to continue the progress that's been made in crime reduction."[28] |
| "lawlessness has become the new normal, with street takeovers, looting, and organized burglary crews"[25] | Corroborates: burglaries rose 12% and property crimes 5% from 2022 to 2024. Rebuts: violent crimes fell 7% and homicides 25% over the same years[37] | Partly supported by official record | "violent crime has fallen every year in the areas patrolled by LASD"[36] |
| "Under Sheriff Luna the LASD is on pace to spend half a billion dollars on overtime, a record amount"[29] | Corroborates: overtime estimated at $486.4 million for FY 2024-25, against a $210.6 million budget.[26] Not addressed: whether it is a record | Partly supported by official record | "the mandatory overtime is killing them … People are working 6, 8, 10 or 12 mandates per month, and that's not sustainable."[38] |
| "there were insufficient deputies available in January to effect timely evacuations and we tragically lost 31 lives in the firestorms"[29] | Corroborates: the County's fire review lists "a high number of Sheriff's deputy vacancies" among resource limits. Not addressed: any link to the deaths; its main findings concern evacuation policies and alerts[39] | Partly supported by official record | "I oversaw LASD's extensive efforts to prevent looting"[34] |
Luna's claims about Villanueva
| Claim | Official evidence (corroborates / rebuts) | Verdict | Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| "I inherited a lot of the challenges with staffing from my predecessor … because of his horrible, fractured relationships."[28] | Corroborates: sworn vacancies were 852 in mid-2022 and 1,069 by Nov. 9, 2022. Not addressed: relationships as a cause; the CEO named "retirements and promotions" as the primary drivers[32] | Partly supported by official record | "Staffing surged to 10,000 until the Board's hiring freeze stalled"[31] |
| On Villanueva's staffing claims: "He's factually incorrect. He's just pulling numbers out of thin air."[28] | Corroborates: sworn vacancies were about 1,400, not over 4,000, and sworn staff numbered 8,809 in Jan. 2025. Rebuts: sworn vacancies did rise, from 1,069 (Nov. 2022) to 1,393 (Dec. 2024). Records: see Villanueva's staffing claims above | Partly supported by official record | "The fact is there are just no people left, there are no deputies left to respond to emergent situations."[28] |
Sources
NBC Los Angeles — 2022 result (secondary)
NBC Los Angeles — June primary results, June 2026 (secondary)
LAist — LA County Sheriff voter guide, updated October 6, 2026 (secondary)
State Attorney General's jail lawsuit, ¶3, ¶202, September 2025
State Attorney General's jail lawsuit, September 2025
Justice Department notice of Men's Central Jail investigation, September 9, 2026
Commission special hearing transcript, Villanueva testimony, January 12, 2024
AP via KEYT — Luna takes office, Villanueva's record, December 2022 (secondary)
CA DOJ OpenJustice, Death in Custody data 2005–2025, extracted May 10, 2026
State Attorney General's jail lawsuit, ¶4, ¶91, September 2025
Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission minutes, January 22, 2026
County Equity Oversight Panel finding, October 2023
Federal court order granting summary judgment, Villanueva v. County of Los Angeles, May 15, 2025
KTLA — LASPA endorses Villanueva (secondary)
Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission minutes, March 20, 2025
County of Los Angeles petition re: contempt, LASC No. 22STCP00120, filed January 12, 2022
LASD policy 3-01/050.82, law enforcement gangs, current manual
Commission report card on its 27 deputy-gang recommendations, April 11, 2025
LASD policy 3-01/050.83, employee groups, current manual
Fox LA — ALADS endorsement history, 2022 (secondary)
LA Times via Yahoo — Luna sues oversight commission (secondary)
KTLA — Villanueva announces candidacy, July 2025 (secondary)
Sheriff's Department FY 2024-25 budget status report, data as of December 2024
Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission report on suicide prevention and employee wellness, May 15, 2025
LA Times via Yahoo — guide to the sheriff's race, October 1, 2026 (secondary)
Villanueva campaign site — staffing op-ed, August 29, 2025 (secondary)
Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission letter on the FY 2025-26 budget, March 4, 2025
Villanueva campaign site — op-ed on Luna, September 2, 2025 (secondary)
County CEO analysis of the Sheriff academy's training needs, December 7, 2022
County CEO report on vacancies and retention (AB 2561), September 18, 2025
Luna campaign site — priorities (secondary)
State Attorney General's jail lawsuit, ¶4, September 2025
Luna campaign site — why he is running (secondary)
California Justice Department crimes and clearances data, 1985–2025, row "Los Angeles Co. Sheriff's Department"
LA Times via Yahoo — Sheriff's Department overtime, April 15, 2025 (secondary)
County after-action review of the January 2025 fires, highlights, September 25, 2025
Los Angeles County campaign finance records (NetFile), searched for "Anthropic" Oct. 16, 2026, https://public.netfile.com/pub2/?AID=LAC; and Cal-Access, Anthropic PBC (filer 1491817), https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1491817, as of Oct. 16, 2026.
Reviewed in the original: every source above was read in full (the Attorney General's complaint, all 78 pages), except those added for the claims check (the CEO reports, budget status report, the commission's March and May 2025 documents, fire review, state crime data, and the news and campaign pages quoted there), which were opened in the original and searched in full text for each figure and quote used. Could not be reviewed: campaign finance filings and totals (the county's campaign finance site returned errors or blocked automated access); an LASD news release on Luna's start date (security check); letters attached as images to the county's 2022 petition (their quoted text appears in the petition).