God I love elections and tomorrow's, down in beautiful northern San Diego County, should be a real humdinger!
It's a foregone conclusion that Francine Busby will be the top vote getter in the election. Every single poll places her support at about 2-3 times that of her closest Republican rival. Even in the reddest of districts--which CA-50 is not, mind you--this would not be a surprise considering that the only viable Democrat in the race (Busby) is facing off against a dozen-odd Republicans.
The real question is, what percentage of the vote will she get tomorrow and what (if any) are the implications we'll be able to take from her finish...
If Busby does not receive 50%+ tomorrow, she'll face the top Republican vote getter in a runnoff scheduled for June 6, the same day as the big CA primary. This favors her because there will be interesting primary elections for Democrats that day--Angelides v. Westly for governor and Delgadillo v. Brown for attorney general--while there aren't any interesting races among the Republican candidates for state-wide office. This should boost turnout among Dems, depress turnout among Republicans, and could give Busby the GOTV advantage she'll need to win in this Republican leaning district.
The last time Busby ran for this seat--against Duke in 2004--she received 37% of the vote to his 58%.
But that was:
1) before the extreme escalation of violence in Iraq (Busby--unlike her GOP opponents--opposes the war), and while a majority of the public still favored our presence there...
2) before the GOP's corruption woes came to fruition--I'm not just talking about Duke, but also Abramoff, Delay, Burns, the whole gaggle of fools...
3) before the Republican's irresponsible environmental policies and inability to govern through a disaster where sadly revealed to the entire nation after the horror of Hurricane Katrina
4) and before the public completely soured on President Bush's performance in office. In CA, 45% of voters chose to reelect Bush, while only about 33% of the state's voters approve of the president today.
How far will these issues go in propelling Busby into the House? We'll find out in about 30 hours!
Busby's campaign site:
http://www.busbyforcongress.org