There are only three citywide elected offices in Los Angeles, and one might expect that in this deep blue city, all three of them — the mayor, the city attorney and the controller — would be Democrats. 

But Kenneth Mejia, the incumbent controller who is running for reelection in next week’s primary, bolted from the Democratic Party in early 2024 to protest American support for Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza. 

Unlike in New York City, where the comptroller makes decisions about overseas investments like Israel Bonds, the L.A. controller — the same position that acts as a municipality or state’s auditor, with different spelling — has no jurisdiction over anything Israel-related. But Mejia said in a video last year that he “could no longer be part of a party that pays for bombs to be dropped overseas while people here in America and in L.A. are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their head.” 

That’s provided an opening for his opponent, real estate executive Zach Sokoloff, to go after Mejia, painting him as insufficiently Democratic.

“From my standpoint, Los Angeles is still a staunchly Democratic town,” Sokoloff told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “I think that it’s healthy for parties to evolve as the world evolves, and I guess remaining loyal to the Democratic Party for me means being involved in that conversation, not abandoning it.” 

Sokoloff is Jewish, which is a big part of his identity, both in public and in private. A video on his campaign Instagram account shows Sokoloff sitting on a park bench under the caption, “What is tikkun olam?” 

“I’m a proud Jew,” Sokoloff told JI. “It has been very ingrained in me that as Jews we need to care about every individual and their well-being, whether or not they are Jewish, and so to me, that sits at the heart of what drives me to serve my community in the first place.” 

In his attacks against Mejia, Sokoloff is taking care not to turn the race for a position responsible for auditing city budgets into a referendum on Middle East policy.

“We have a lot of really dedicated public servants who are spending every day working on those issues, and the issue of the conflict in the Middle East is outside the purview of the controllership,” said Sokoloff, who is an asset manager at Hackman Capital Partners, a large Hollywood real estate firm that owns more than 60 soundstages. “We’re running a back-to-basics campaign about being a well-managed city, being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

Sokoloff has the endorsement of major political players, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Los Angeles Democratic Party and the speaker of the state Assembly. Mejia, for his part, is sticking with the grassroots, anti-establishment argument that got him elected in the first place. But where Mejia was an outsider in 2022, Sokoloff is now the political newcomer, and he sees that as a weak spot for Mejia.

“He has a record at this point, and he is part of the establishment. He’s part of the elected city leadership that has allowed these outcomes to come to bear, and I think he needs to be held accountable,” said Sokoloff. 

Sokoloff grew up in Los Angeles and began his career as a teacher with Teach for America in underserved schools before earning a law degree and MBA at Harvard. Since then, he has worked in the private sector, but he insists — as someone who came of age in the Obama era — that public service was his first passion. 

“You’ve got this central financial challenge in Los Angeles. You’ve got someone in myself who has a background in managing multibillion-dollar projects and common-sense problem solving, and so it feels like the challenges we have as a city align very closely to the skills and experience that I have as a professional,” said Sokoloff. 

Mejia and Sokoloff are the only two candidates running for controller, and if one of them gets more than 50% of the vote, then the winner of the June 2 primary will be the winner of the race. If neither candidate gets 50% of the vote, it will go to a runoff election.