California satan day election results

[socaldem]

I'm really cheering for Speier and she has huge margins in the Bay area (san mateo county, wow!) but L.A. has not reported anything yet so I fear she has more downside than upside potential.

That said, though Speier (and Westly, who I'm also rooting for) may be at a disadvantage in the regional ballots outstanding, I suspect both did better on election day than in absentee totals.

I'm glad to see Chiang ahead in the contoller's race.  And Debra Bowen is sure performing well.  I hope that bodes well for the race against McPherson.

[socaldem]

Imperial County is such an interesting and odd duck...

Since it has the largest Latino population, it is unusual for its populism.  This was illustrated in the November special election when all of Arnold's anti-labor propositions were defeated with tremendous margins while it was one of the only counties to support the more left-wing props 78 & 79 as well as prop 73, which limited access to abortion for minors..

One also expects imperial County to have a bias towards candidates with Latin surnames...

Latino/as were running on the Dem primary ballot for four statewide offices, including longshots rocky Delgadillo for AG, Deborah Ortiz for Secretary of State, Liz Figueroa for LG.

As expected, each won Imperial County, with Sacramento's Ortiz also picking up her home base and Delgadillo winning heavily Latino Northern Sacramento valley counties and overperforming in L.A.







Of course, since he won every other county in the state, one might expect Cruz Bustamonte to perform particularly well in Imperial County.  But, no, its the only county that he loses!  I don't know what to make of it...

[socaldem]

A number of socially conservative counties didn't vote for Washington's partial birth abortion ban.  I'm not always convinced that abortion votes are the best ways to determine that sort of thing.

For instance, the moderately Republican but generally middle-class Clark County voted against legalising marijuana.  I wouldn't call it populist, just suburbanite conservative.  If you kow what I'm getting at...

Sometimes I think that there are a lot of "cultural conservatives" out there who are more uncomfortable than they realise with social conservatism.

Apples to orange comparision, partial birth abortion is a non-medical term, and did the ban make an exception to save the life of the woman? Also, Alpine county did vote for Kerry and Boxer.

The ban item read as follows:

Shall the termination of a fetus' life during the process of birth be a felony crime except when necessary to prevent the pregnant woman's death?

So, yes, it did, and I think "process of birth" is a pretty clear term.  In fact, with that wording, I'm surprised it failed so badly.  It failed statewide with under 43%.

The medical marijuana item read as follows:

Shall the medical use of marijuana for certain terminal or debilitating conditions be permitted, and physicians authorized to advise patients about medical use of marijuana.

It passed with 59%.

I know Alpine voted for Kerry and Boxer.  That's why I was asking.  It seems odd that the two groups (the liberals and the mainstream conservatives) could have voted together so strongly even 15 years ago if it wasn't for the Democrats being either populists or libertarians.  It's an area which I'd like to know more about (Mono County, too).

This was passed along with an anti-governmental affirmative action proposition (which passed 58%, with support of every county but a narrow defeat in King).

An awful lot of fuss about the whopping 700 voters in Alpine County!   Since .00564% of the state's voters live there, it could be crucial!

[socaldem]

Anyways, some people on this forum may be underating Angelides. He was the California Democratic chair from 1991-1993. California basically changed from a Republican state to a Democratic state in that period. DiFi won a Republican Senate seat, while the other seat went to liberal Boxer. In the previous 10 Presidential elections, California had only gone for LBJ in his blowout landslide. California is now a safe Democrat state.

maybe i'm missing something, but why do you think in a brief two year period california became a democratic state?  that is an awfully short period of time.  It seems like it usually takes at least 10 years for a state to shift completely from one side to the other. 

In fact, it took the whole '90s for the state to become a Dem stronghold.  In addition to the increased participation and support for Democrats by Latinos, the '90s saw the collapse of the Southern California defense economy and the emergence of the technology sector as a dominant force in Norcal. 

The most striking gains by Dems have been in the bay area suburbs which used to lean moderately gop but are now dem strongholds and in non-O.C. southern California suburbs.  Consider that in '00, a total of five suburban CA GOP districts flipped to Dems.

Curiously, while in other Dem-leaning states (like say NY, PA, or until, 2002, IL) GOPers still hold on to power in statehouses, in CA Dems were able to completely obliterate the GOP in legislative elections in the traditionally GOP suburban areas.  This actually may have been an inadvertant consequence of term limits which forced entrenched GOP incumbents to retire, leaving open seats for an up-and-coming Democratic party.