Democratic Socialists Bet on Sara Deen Over Paul Seo in California's South Bay

The question of where socialism goes next in America will not be answered in New York. It will be answered 3,000 miles west, in places like California's South Bay.

Candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and its regional affiliates have proven consistently effective inside closed Democratic primaries, where a compact and motivated bloc can carry a race and nobody outside the party is ever consulted.

California does not offer that terrain. There are no closed elections here. On June 2, every voter in the district received an identical ballot, and the two highest finishers advanced regardless of party. In the state's deepest blue districts, that occasionally produces a November choice between two Democrats with no Republican anywhere on the ballot.

Assembly District 66 fits that description. No Republican advanced, which puts the district's 97,000 independents in position to decide between the DSA-recommended Sara Deen and Paul Seo, the moderate.

Assembly District 66

Paul Seo (D) vs. Sara Deen (D)

Seo and Deen finished two points apart coming out of the primary, at 27 percent and 25 percent.

Seo, a popular mayor in Rancho Palos Verdes, is a deputy state attorney general and an Army veteran who spent seven years prosecuting serious and violent felonies for the Los Angeles County District Attorney.

Seo has assembled a coalition of organized labor and law enforcement endorsements: the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, IAM District 947, and USW Local 675 alongside the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League. He has pledged to increase funding for police, sheriff's deputies, prosecutors, and the Highway Patrol.

Deen is a Pakistani-American dentist and presides over the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District board.

The California Democratic Socialists of America voter guide says, “Sara Deen is clearly positioned as the progressive candidate in this not-very-progressive district, so we recommend that you should vote for her.”

Deen asked DSA-LA to remove its recommendation from its voter guide. "We asked for it to be removed because it misrepresents my values and equates Muslim Americans with socialism - giving opponents a safer way to attack my identity instead of my record," she said. Later, she said that she "did not intend to say that DSA-LA itself equates Muslim-Americans with socialism."

"What I meant to say is that political opportunists took DSA-LA's recommendation, which I never sought, and used it to feed a false narrative - painting Muslim-American leaders as secret socialists, communists, or dangerous outsiders."

Deen is also endorsed by the California Teachers Association, the California Dental Association, the California Women's List, the National Women's Political Caucus, and Indivisible South Bay.

Initiate Justice Action, a criminal justice reform group, recommended Deen as its “harm reduction” candidate, citing the law enforcement backing of Seo as a negative.

Deen is 47 and lives in a $4-million house in Rancho Palos Verdes with her partner, who is also a doctor. She has contributed to CAIR-CA PAC, sending $1,000 to a political action committee associated with Hussam Ayloush. She has faced calls for her resignation from the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District board over her social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war.

In October 2023, Deen spoke from the main stage at the California Democratic Party's convention in Sacramento, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as delegates cheered and chanted "cease-fire now."

Deen was joined at the podium by Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs, who condemned abuses by both Hamas and the Israeli government, and the convention later drew scrutiny over the safety of Jewish delegates. Deen said she has facilitated New Ground Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change, a program pairing Jewish and Muslim high schoolers for a year of dialogue, and described the rise in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate as "two sides of the same coin."

Democrats hold 43 percent of the district and Republicans 27 percent, leaving 97,000 voters, or 30 percent, registered with neither party, of whom 75,000 are No Party Preference.

The district takes in the heart of the South Bay in Los Angeles: Torrance, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, Gardena, Lomita, San Pedro, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Suburban and affluent, voters from this district favored Joe Biden by a whopping 63 percent in 2020. Its population of roughly 474,000 is 44 percent non-Hispanic white, 23 percent Asian, 21 percent Latino, and 4 percent Black. It’s one of the most Asian-American districts in the California legislature.

[Author's note: This article has been updated to include the fact that Sara Deen asked the Democratic Socialists of LA to remove their recommendation of her from their voter guide.]