Where was Torrance in Congressional Politics? 1913 – 1933 CD 10

The Los Angeles area population continued to explode, which meant that Los Angeles County as a whole was divided into further districts.

The entire Santa Monica Bay coastline was drawn into one district, and then scooped eastward to include the Port of Los Angeles, then all the way up the Alameda Corridor to the Glendale/Hollywood area.

Following the 1920 census, California did not gain any new Congressional seats in the next apportionment, which meant that district boundaries remained unchanged for the next 10 years.

Congressional District 10, Close-up for Torrance

Election 1912

Election 1914 — Can you imagine a Congressional election with not just five candidates, but two candidates running under the Prohibition ticket as well as as a card-carrying socialist?!

Election 1916–Henry Osborne finally won election as a Republican. He was the last Union veteran to serve in Congress.

Election 1918

Can anyone imagine a Republican Congressman running for re-election in Los Angeles County without any Democratic opposition?!

It happened two years in a row for Republican Henry Osborne!

Election 1920

Osborne ran against famed muckraker, novelist, and socialist-progressive Upton Sinclair in 1920!

Election 1922

Reminder: California gained no new Congressional seats following the 1920 census.

Also, for this election, Osborne's last before he died in office, Osborne faced no opposition at all!

Those were the days for Republicans in Los Angeles County, when they held an unprecedented hold on political power in the Western and Southern sections of the county.

Election 1924

John D. Fredericks won a special election on May 1, 1923.

He would election for a full term in 1924:

Election 1926

Election 1928

Election 1930

Notice that the Democratic challenger got only 25% of the vote. The small strip of beach north of El Segundo is named after him.

Reflection

Throughout the 20 years period listed above, not once did a Democrat represent Torrance.

Twenty years!

Not only that, but the entire delegation was majority Republican, and toward the end of this era, the Democratic Party held onto one or two seats tops.

Even more intriguing. San Francisco, well-known as a hyper-Democratic bastion of Democratic socialism today, was represented by Republican lawmakers in Washington DC!

Sources:

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=114906