California SD-25 special election

Because Republican Steve Knight will be in congress, there'll be a special election for his senate seat. Here are the candidates the Sac Bee lists as possible for the special:

Republican Dante Acosta, Santa Clarita councilman
Republican Sal Chavez, businessman
Republican Marvin Crist, Lancaster vice mayor
Republican Tim Donnelly, former assemblyman/businessman
Republican Sandra Johnson, Lancaster councilwoman
Republican John Kunak, former Castaic Area Town councilman
Republican Jim Ledford, Palmdale mayor
Republican R. Rex Parris, Lancaster mayor
Republican Sharon Runner, former assemblywoman and senator
Republican Eric Schmidt, Hesperia mayor pro tem
Republican Scott Wilk, assemblyman

Democrat Star Moffatt, legal office manager
Democrat Johnathon Ervin, senior engineer

This candidate list shows how deep a bench Republicans have, with a long list of elected officials. Democrats have an office manager and an engineer. SD-21 and CA-25 have virtually identical Brown 2010/Feinstein 2012 numbers. CA-25 has Simi Valley while SD-21 has some of San Bernardino county. The thin Democratic bench shows why Democrats will have a hard time finding a Knight challenger unless they carpetbag someone from Los Angeles over to the Antelope Valley.