Thursday, March 17, 2016

California AD-31 Special Election: First VBM Ballots In

There's an upcoming special election to fill the Central Valley California AD-31 seat left vacant after Democrat Henry Perea resigned. This seat is the most Democratic one in the Central Valley and has a 52% Latino CVAP. The registration is 47% Democrat/28% Republican. Perea won big in 2012 and Republicans didn't run a candidate in 2014. Barack Obama got 63% of the vote in 2012, while Jerry Brown got 58% in 2014. Republicans hold only one assembly seat where Brown got 58% or more.

Specials are low turnout in California, even lower than the low turn out in the 2014 mid-term. While the mid-term had 60% vote by mail, the 2013 special election in SD-12, which this district is part of, had 76% VBM. So the VBM will be very telling. There's a Republican and two Democrats running. Regular California elections have a jungle primary and then a run-off at the general no matter what. If a candidate gets 50% in a special, however, there's no run off. The 2013 special had 22% turnout. The first VBM ballots are in and so far there's 4% turnout. The ballots are 48% Democrat/35% Republican and only 32% Latino. There may be an upset brewing here.

The source of the ballots is Political Data. Thank you for the information.

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