Special state legislative elections thread (see OP for results/upcoming races)

[Holmes]

Small turnout. Where is this seat?

[Holmes]

CARL

[Holmes]

fwiw:

ALBANY — The State Senate on Tuesday expelled a senator convicted of domestic assault, the first time in nearly a century that the Legislature has forced a member from office.

The Senate voted 53-to-8 to immediately oust the senator, Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat convicted last fall of a misdemeanor for dragging his companion down the hallway of his apartment building.

Yay.

[Holmes]

Victory.

[Holmes]

Democratic favorite is John Laird, former Assemblyman and Mayor of Santa Cruz. He's gay.

Hell yeah!

[Holmes]

Haha. Gay Maldonado. It's Laird.

[Holmes]

The June 22 special for CA SD-15 (Maldonado's seat) has four candidates: a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian and an Independent. Due the the open primary law, if nobody wins a majority, there will be a general election in August... with the same four candidates.

I'll give everyone a heads up.

[Holmes]

Well, my boyfriend voted for Laird today. And then got a push poll against him... said that Laird was being endorsed or something by special interests, and if a Republican gets attacked regarding offshore drilling, if that's a fair or not. They didn't give a name... just said they were independent.

[Holmes]

I can't say, personally. I mean Laird was the mayor of Santa Cruz and he's a good candidate for the area, so obviously his support is gonna be really high down there compared to the rest of the district.

[Holmes]

It's the 22nd.

[Holmes]

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/special/1559.htm

27% in and Blakeslee is up 9%. For what it's worth, it seems Santa Cruz is the only county that hasn't reported anything yet, just its early votes. As expected, Blakeslee is winning San Luis and Santa Barbara big, and Laird is winning Monterey and Santa Cruz big. Santa Clara is pretty much tied and will probably decide it... but I bet there'll be a runoff, barely.

[Holmes]

Just a tiny amount of San Jose is in the district, though. You can't extrapolate the 2008 results and make a prediction on tonight's showing from them.

[Holmes]

I'm pretty surprised Blakeslee did so well in Santa Barbara. Granted, I don't know too much about Santa Barbara, let alone what part of it is in the district. Though, Laird definitely needs to perform better in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey to win in August.

Also, I hope those three can be redistricted out of the wretched SoCal next year.

[Holmes]

Winning over Democrats isn't the problem.

Just look at Santa Clara county.  The result there implies a pretty significant crossover vote as well as low Democratic turnout.   Obama won 63% in the portion included in the district and John Kerry got 56% there.  Laird has to win there with room to spare to have a chance in the runoff.

Ehh, did you read my post? Santa Clara has 1.6million residents, and probably 150k people from Santa Clara are actually in this district, most from small cities and towns, and unincorporated areas. You can't use any county-wide result and apply it to this district considering <10% of the county actually lives in this district. And San Jose is hardly in this district too, and that city carries a lot of weight in county-wide results.

That said, yeah, Laird should be able to win it, but not by much. He needs to work harder till August.

[Holmes]

Grooooooosssssssss.

Please let Watsonville not be in any district that touches SoCal after redistricting.

[Holmes]

Ugh, I hate Diaz. And you know he'll somehow outlast everyone.

[Holmes]

Haha, CARL. Stealth brag there if I ever seen one.

[Holmes]

Only partisan Democrats would be the ones crying over losing legislatures in the deep south, yes.