Wednesday, November 7, 2012

California Competitive First Glance

Don't assume the California is over. There have been roughly 9 million ballots counted. There were 13.6 million ballots in 2008. That'd be 66% of the votes. I expect that there will be more ballots this time. These ballots are across everywhere, although my calculations are that 86% of the vote is in for CA-24, while only 39% is in for CA-41.

It isn't unusual for elections to change by several points after election night. I know the knee jerk reaction is to declare races over and be done with them. Elections have moved 3-4 points in the weeks after they were done.

That said, last night looked pretty awful for the GOP and I look pretty wrong. At the top of the ticket, Barack Obama has had only a few points of drop off and the polls may have all underestimated him. Dianne Feinstein appears to be at the upper limit of what a Democrat can do in the state.

John Garamendi, Jerry McNerney, Jim Costa, and Lois Capps all won. None of those are a surprise. Right now they're all ahead by an at least 7.6%, but none is ahead more than 9.6%. Republicans were certainly disappointing, but I wouldn't say any of these candidates have safe seats through 2020.

As expected, Jeff Denham an David Valadao should win. While Valadao was clearly the stronger candidate a 20 point win in a district that has a 15 point Democratic registration edge, in a good Democratic year, is shocking.

I expected Mark Takano to win in CA-41, thus proving my statement that Democrats will have never won in Riverside County until they finally do. There are less than 100,000 ballots counted here. I expect the race will tighten once the bulk of the ballots are counted, but that Takano will still win comfortably.

I predicted Gary DeLong would win in CA-47, privately admitted that was wishful thinking since I'd volunteered for DeLong. This was a very tough district for the GOP. While I expect Republicans to challenge the 4 Democratic incumbents listed above, I think Lowenthal will cruise to victories in the future.

I'm shocked that the late returns in CA-26 have broken for Julia Brownley, but again this was another campaign I volunteered on. This one isn't over, but Brownley has a good lead.

CA-36 is also too close to call, but Raul Ruiz looks good. Another one for me to be wrong on.

CA-7 and 52. Don't draw any conclusions here. A few hundred ballots separate the two candidates and there are a lot left to go. I expected CA-52 to be close, although I expressed optimism that the GOP would win such a Republican district. I expected Lungren to win comfortably. He may still win, but this was way closer than I thought.

The state senate went worse than I expected. I thought we'd see a narrow win for Jeff Miller in Riverside county, but he disappointed. Todd Zink saw a lead evaporate late at night. He probably won't come back. If this holds the GOP is down 28-12 in the state senate, enough for the Democrats to have a super majority. Republicans should gain at least 1 seat in 2014, but I'm not going to predict the 2 they'd need to wipe that out just yet.

The assembly results were also disappointing. I expected a 50-30 split, being cautiously optimistic that the GOP would get 32 seats. Right now it's 52D-26R. Democrats need the two remaining seats for a super majority here.

The surprises to me were AD-08 in East Sacramento and AD-66 in the South Bay of Los Angeles. Both went heavily Republican in the primary and went against us last night. I can't imagine what happened in AD-66, a district I know well.

AD-32 and AD-65 are districts where the Republican trails in elections that'll change once all the ballots are counted. AD-32 is the Central Valley, the same location as Valadao. So there's a big disconnect there. AD-65 is Orange County, in an area where Republicans always win. I believe Chris Norby will win when all the ballots are counted, but at this point I wouldn't trust me on too much.

Democrats got their big tax increase that'll produce way less revenue than they think it will and will make rich people antsy. The biggest problem California has isn't spending, that's second, it's too big a reliance on the top 1%. Their volatile incomes have resulted in a huge drop in revenue. The smart wasn't to rely on them even more.

Now that the Democrats have their big tax increase and may be able to increase taxes at will in the legislature I'm not sure how they'll still blame the Republicans for all the state's problems. They will though.

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