Around The Capitol Readers Predict the Races

Around The Capitol is the best daily read on California politics. I say this even though the blogger, Scott Lay, is a Democrat. Once again he's asked readers to pick the 1st and 2nd place finishers in a number of races and it's obvious from this that even those who think they know politics don't understand Top Two. What people don't get is that in Democratic districts, there is still a Republican vote. If there are two or more Democrats on the ballot, the lone Republican will not only make Top Two, but likely finish first. If you look at CA-33 and add up all Republican percentages, one of the three Republicans are named on less than 30% of all ballots. Not only am I 99% sure Elan Carr will finish Top Two, but he's likely to beat the second place finisher by 7-10%. It's not out of the realm of possibility that he'll get as many votes as the second and third place finisher combined.

I'll be participating. There are smart people in California. I finished 59th out of 481 people in June 2012. I'll publish my predictions for every race later today. Because I have June 2012 data and there aren't any Propositions on Around The Capitol ballot this time, I'll guarantee you that you're getting someone who'll be in the top 10% of all California predictors this time.