CA State Senate: Michael Rubio Resigns

California State Senator Michael Rubio (D-SD-16) resigned today. Rubio was regarded as a rising Democratic star and considered the best candidate for CA-21 congressional seat in 2012. He passed on the race, citing family reasons, and is now moving out of elected office.

The Central Valley is definitely moving toward the Democrats on a Presidential level but Democrats have been mostly disappointing on a local level. White voters here resemble those in rural Texas and a lot of Hispanic Democrats don't vote. Republican David Valadao won the congressional seat and the senate seat figures to be competitive. I don't have all the numbers but the special will be in the old SD16, which is slightly more Democratic than the new SD14 people, which contains 80% of the SD16 population. A special election can produce unusual results due to low turn-out issues. Hence why Craig Huey made a race of the CA-36 special congressional election in 2011. How competitive Republicans are in the special could be a sign of how competitive the GOP will be in 2014.

Rubio resigning not only removes him from Valadao's 2014 challengers but likely will remove a Democrat who runs for the seat from that list.