Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva conceded Tuesday to former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, who comes with a long list of Democratic establishment endorsements.

Villanueva formally admitted defeat during a press conference at the Hall of Justice near downtown L.A. after the latest election results from the county registrar’s office showed with more than 1.2 million ballots counted, his opponent won with just over 60% of the vote from county residents.

“I want to wish the incoming sheriff well,” Villanueva said during a news conference. “The safety of the community depends on him succeeding. The welfare of every single person in the department depends on him succeeding.”

Villanueva spent the greater portion of his press conference unraveling false narratives created about his administration by the political establishment and legacy media outlets, which failed to accurately report or clear up propaganda spread about the sheriff’s department.

The sheriff also blamed his loss over the media’s coverage of so-called deputy gangs, or “cliques,” within the law enforcement department that allegedly encouraged violence against residents, jail inmates, and even fellow deputies who challenged them. Villanueva has repeatedly denied allegations of having any ties with the groups.

“All of this, the whole thing on the deputy gangs, was literally a campaign strategy,” Villanueva said. “My four years in office, I can tell you this all four years, we achieved something very important because if you treat the county government like it is — a corrupt criminal enterprise — we pushed back and opened the window into the corruption of the county.”

Los Angeles County supervisors and Villanueva clashed on several issues during his term, who backed efforts to defund the department.

During the pandemic, Villanueva refused to comply with vaccine mandates, exposed the homeless industrial complex, and other allegations of corruption and fraud rotting within the board of supervisors.

Villanueva again slammed the media for the lack of accountability on the local government.

“We need you to be the voice of democracy that will survive,” Villanueva said. “You can’t survive if all you do is parrot the political narrative of the establishment — that is a democracy in decline.”

Los Angeles residents also approved with 70% voting in favor of ballot Measure A, which gives the county’s Board of Supervisors the power to fire a sitting sheriff.

The new measure puts the incoming sheriff at the mercy of the board.

Luna, who headed the Long Beach police for seven years before retiring last year and a former Republican turned Democrat in 2020, thanked Los Angeles County voters for his victory and offered “best wishes” to his opponent in a statement.

“I’m deeply honored and humbled that you have elected me as your next sheriff,” Luna wrote. “With your vote, you have entrusted me with a clear mandate to bring new leadership and accountability to the Sheriff’s Department,” which is the nation’s largest sheriff’s department, with nearly 10,000 sworn deputies.

pic.twitter.com/SEKfIKuSW2

— Robert Luna (@lunaforsheriff) November 15, 2022

However, Villanueva claimed Luna has called his administration “chaos and dysfunctional,” filled with “scandals” run by “a rogue sheriff.”

Luna ran his campaign on promises to reform and modernize the sheriff’s departments and jails while claiming to reduce crime, address homelessness, and restore so-called public trust in the County Sheriff’s Office.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Jeff Katzenberg, a co-founder of DreamWorks and a longtime Democratic donor, contributed at least half a million dollars to a campaign committee supporting Luna.

Villanueva denounced “the arrogance of the select few — the billionaire crowd, in particular — who may know how to make movies, but they don’t know how to run law enforcement organizations,” adding that such crowds are willing to wipe out the leadership to better suit their ideology.

“The Democratic Party is now married to the progressive movement in L.A.,” Villanueva said. “And how that plays out on a national level — I don’t know. But here locally, I can say it is a very anti-Latino coalition — it is anti-law enforcement.”

Former President Donald Trump launched a new bid for the White House Tuesday evening, ending months of speculation regarding whether he would seek the nation’s highest office a third time.

Trump made the announcement in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago estate in front of a crowd of supporters after he filed the federal paperwork required to run for president.

“My fellow citizens, America’s comeback starts right now,” Trump declared to a cheering crowd. “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”

Trump said that he would “fight like no one has ever fought before” and claimed that he would stop Biden from winning re-election. “Our country could not take four more years,” he said. “They can only take so much.”

President Trump: "In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States." pic.twitter.com/z95oHYjWwF

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 16, 2022

Trump’s new campaign comes after two years of Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, a unified government that helped fuel decades-high inflation and gas prices and historic levels of illegal immigration on the southern border. The Biden administration, notably, botched high-profile foreign policy decisions, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan — which fell to the Taliban almost immediately — and failed to completely end the COVID pandemic after promising to shut down the virus.

Trump’s allies say he is the best choice for the party’s nomination because he has already held the office and accomplished numerous feats during his administration, including strength on foreign policy, energy independence, a strong economy, a military that was being revamped and retooled for the wars of tomorrow, and his success in getting three conservative justices on the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court justices have been a particular high point for conservatives, particularly following the demise of Roe v. Wade in the summer.

Trump was largely considered to be the favorite for the Republican nomination heading into the 2024 cycle, and the day before the midterm elections — when Republicans were largely expected to easily ride a red wave into the majority in the House and Senate — he strongly hinted that his 2024 announcement would come the following week.

But a poor showing by Republicans and some of Trump’s high-profile handpicked candidates, combined with Trump’s subsequent attacks on fellow Republicans, has led to some in the party cooling on him in post-election polling.

One poll, commissioned by the Club For Growth, found that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had overtaken Trump 48% to 37% in Iowa, 52% to 37% in New Hampshire, 56% to 30% in Florida, and 55% to 35% in Georgia. Trump had previously led DeSantis in all of those states, as recently as just a few months ago, in that same poll.

A separate poll, conducted by CWS Research, found that DeSantis is now up over Trump in the state of Texas by 11 points. Last month, Trump led DeSantis by 17 points.

Only one former president, Grover Cleveland, has won the presidency after losing the previous time, and it’s unclear what kind of primary field Trump might face. Speculated primary opponents include DeSantis, as well as some who served in the Trump administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. None of them have said whether they plan to run for president.

Trump’s announcement also comes amidst a criminal investigation into the way he handled U.S. government records after leaving the White House. A former employee of Trump’s reportedly told federal investigators that Trump instructed him to move boxes of records “within his Florida residence after receiving a government subpoena demanding their return,” Reuters reported.