Editor's note: This article was updated to indicate that in 2014, SMRR's Steering Committee endorsed three City Council candidates after the group's members failed to make any endorsements.
By Jorge Casuso
August 10, 2026 – Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMMR) endorsed Mayor Caroline Tororis and Rent Control Board member Danny Ivanov at the group's annual convention Sunday, but failed to make a third endorsement in the race for three open City Council seats.
The powerful tenants group's steering committee will now decide whether to endorse one of the three candidates who made it to the third and final round of voting but failed to win the 55 percent of the vote needed.
They are incumbent Councilmember Lana Negrete, who is leading a rival slate but won the necessary 20 percent of the votes cast to advance in the first two rounds; Public Safety Reform and Oversight Commissioner Angela Scott, and Brett Morrow, Chief Communications Officer for LA County Public Health.
Tuesday's in-person vote by more than 175 SMMR members comes after the local Demoratic Club made no Council endorsements when none of the ten competing candidates won the necessary 55 percent of the votes cast at its July 15 convention held via Zoom.
At Sunday's SMRR convention at the Grant Elementary School Auditorium, Torosis won the endorsement in the first round, while Rent Board member Ericka Lesley and abundant housing advocate Eli Gill failed to advance.
Ivanov won SMRR's backing in the third round of voting, while businessman Doug Trussler, who is a member of the slate headed by Negrete, failed to win the necessary 20 percent of the vote to advance to the final round.
Incumbent Councilmember Jesse Zwick did not seek SMRR's endorsement and has not pulled nomination papers to run for re-election after being hired as director of a housing advocacy group, a position that has disqualified him from voting on housing issues.
SMRR's ten-member Steering Committee – which remained unchanged after an uncontested election last November -- has made high-profile endorsements in the past.
In 2014 the committee endorsed all three City Council candidates after the group's members failed to make any endorsements. The committee voted to back incumbent Councilmember Kevin McKeown and Planning Commissioners Jennifer Kennedy and Sue Himmelrich for three open seats.
It was not the first time SMRR’s steering committee made Council endorsements. Two years earlier in 2012, the committee voted to back Terry O’Day and Tony Vazquez, and in 2010 it voted to endorse Pam O’Connor.
Gaining the committee's backing is technically different than gaining the support through a convention endorsement. Candidates cannot identify themselves as having been endorsed by SMRR on personal campaign literature.
However, the endorsed candidates' names and pictures appear on the organization’s campaign materials, with no distinction made on how candidates received the support.