Bear down and go vote.
Are you an insomniac who will be up all night waiting for the returns to come in from Alaska? Do you worry that as the results from Colorado become clear, you won't have anything to entertain you until then because Jeff Merkley seems like he'll have a drama-free re-election in Oregon? If any of this describes you, you should venture over to the California secretary of state's website starting at 8 PM Pacific time on election day to see how things are going over in the Golden State. I confess that we don't have a race that will help determine control of the Senate this cycle, but there are plenty of other races that merit attention.
It's true that most of the statewide races are sleepers: Incumbent governor Jerry Brown holds a commanding lead over his Republican challenger, Neel Kashkari, who was last seen pretending to be homeless and releasing ridiculous ads featuring drowning children. Other Democrats running in partisan races on the statewide ticket have enjoyed sizable leads in previous polling, and given California's heavily Democratic tilt, it seems unlikely that any of their Republican opponents will be able to make sufficient headway to pull off an upset, even in a midterm year, unless Democratic turnout across the state is absolutely abysmal.
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But there is one statewide race that is being fiercely contested, and there are some congressional races that will help shape some storylines. More on these below the fold.
If you care about the future of public education in California, you ought to be paying attention to the race for superintendent of public instruction. It features two Democrats, but the ideological contrast between them couldn't be clearer. The incumbent Superintendent, Tom Torlakson, is a strong supporter of public education, and has the endorsement of labor, the Democratic Party, and just about every single Democratic elected official across the state.
Billionaires, anti-teacher advocates, and education privatizers have their own candidate, however: Marshall Tuck, a former Wall Street banker who decided to turn his efforts to helping establish charter schools. Tuck supports the dangerous Vergara lawsuit that is attempting to strip teachers of their due process rights, and he is being supported by some of the most notorious names in the corporate privatization movement: Students First, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, just to name a few. This race has become a proxy war of independent expenditures: teachers are weighing in heavily to support Torlakson, while anti-union and anti-pension billionaires are putting in millions into the effort to replace a pro-teacher incumbent with a charter school executive. Daily Kos has not made an endorsement in this race, but if you value basic job protections for teachers and want to have a superintendent of public instruction who does not blame teachers first, you should tell everyone you know to vote for Tom Torlakson. If, however, you prefer to stand with Michelle Rhee and the billionaires of Walmart and Enron, then Marshall Tuck is your guy.
Turning to federal races, Democrats have two pickup opportunities in the House worth paying attention to:
- CA-31: This seat, which is D+6 in the Cook index, should never have been held by a Republican in the first place. After redistricting in 2010, Republican Rep. Gary Miller was drawn into the same district as his fellow Republican Ed Royce. Miller bit the bullet and moved into this Democratic district, centered in San Bernardino County. But a weird quirk of California's top-two primary ensured a Republican representative here in the 2012 election, as so many Democratic candidates split the vote that it allowed two Republicans, one of whom was Gary Miller, to advance to the top-two runoff system. Miller, rather than face defeat in this district he shouldn't have won to begin with, chose to retire. Democratic voters narrowly avoided making the same mistake again, giving Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar a 209-vote lead over a third-place Republican. Aguilar should be able to pull one back for team blue: Democrats took more than 53 percent of the vote in the primary, where Democratic performance usually lags compared to the general election.
- CA-21: This isn't a district that anyone expected to be on the radar screen at this time, but there's no denying that is should be. This agricultural district in California's San Joaquin Valley has a 17-point Democratic registration advantage, but a Cook index of only D+2. It's a majority Latino district, but turnout is always the issue. Republican David Valadao, the son of Portuguese immigrants, won this district by more than 15 points in 2012, and there was no reason to assume he would fare any worse against former Feinstein aide Amanda Renteria. Well, this race is now for real. A recent Survey USA poll has the race within five points. But even more impressive are the turnout numbers: Democrats have a 48-31 registration advantage, but also have a 51-36 advantage in returned mail ballots as of the end of Thursday. This one could well come down to who has the better ground game.
Democrats are also trying to protect three freshman incumbents in swingy suburban districts. Ami Bera in CA-07 and Julia Brownley in CA-26 are running to defend their seats against a former congressman and a member of the State Assembly, respectively, and these elections will be close. In the 52nd, however, Rep. Scott Peters is running against the tour de force known as Carl DeMaio. DeMaio, an openly gay Republican who decided to challenge Peters after losing the race for mayor of San Diego, has been scandal-plagued: a former staffer, Todd Bosnich, accused him of sexual harrassment. DeMaio has denied the incident and tried to dismiss Bosnich's allegations as retribution for being fired for plagiarism, but Bosnich is now turning out to be DeMaio's worst nightmare. Early in the year, DeMaio also sent Bosnich a misogynist email mocking Peters' campaign manager. And the latest hammer to drop was Bosnich claiming that he and another campaign operative were the actual authors of a newspaper editorial attacking Peters. Oh, and another DeMaio operative actually warned people to be on the lookout for black people at DeMaio campaign events because they might be opposition trackers. Stay classy, San Diego.
The other interesting federal race is California's 17th district up in Silicon Valley, which pits incumbent Congressman and Daily Kos endorsee Mike Honda against tech CEO Ro Khanna. Both are Democrats, but Khanna has been running to Honda's right, including attacking him for wanting to strengthen Social Security. Heck, Khanna even did an interview with Breitbart earlier this month imploring Republicans to help him oust the incumbent because "Honda votes way far to the left of where Obama is." So really, it's not a race between two Democrats. It's a race between Daily Kos and Breitbart. And you can help Daily Kos win by contributing to Honda here.
Those are the federal and statewide races to watch out for. Part 2, arriving next Sunday, will cover some interesting local races and ballot measures.
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