Ventura is a swing county here in California. Obama won it 52%-45% in 2012, so it had a slight Democratic skew. We had a bunch of statewide races last Tuesday in which Democrats won by anywhere from 6% to 19%. Since the Democrats were pretty much assured of victory, they spent little money and none in Ventura. Some of the Republicans ran just to have names on the ballot. While Ventura county was a tight race in CA-26 and AD-44, I'm sure none of the statewide candidates bothered to do anything there. Democrats Governor Jerry Brown, Insurance Commisioner Dave Jones, AG Kamala Harris, and Controller John Chiang, who was running for Treasurer, all won Ventura. Republican challengers Ron Nehring, Lt Governor, Ashley Swearengin, Controller, and Pete Peterson, Secretary of State, won it as Republicans.
We have something out here called the Board of Equalization that collects our taxes. The state is divided into four tax collecting districts. One district consists of Los Angeles and Ventura counties with a tiny slice of San Bernardino. Because it has LA county, the GOP didn't bother to run a candidate in the primary against incumbent Democrat Jerome Horton. Four candidates qualified as write-ins and some dude Republican G. Rick Marshall got 1,847 votes to qualify for the November ballot. He beat Horton in Ventura county 81,584 votes to 73,124 (53%-47%).
You have to love California. In some places just having a name on the ballot gets you enough votes to "win" a county.
No comments:
Post a Comment