I found myself on the California Secretary of State's website looking at the Boxer-Bill Jones Senate results from 2004. In my research, I began to notice that Boxer won or was competitive in a lot of districts currently represented by Republicans. Now if it were just a handful of districts this would be mentionable but not a web-wide call for action. However, the number of districts I came up was
TWELVE! Let me say that again:
TWELVE!!!!! OVER HALF of the California Congressional Republican delegation (20) represent districts with substantial Democratic/Boxer supporters, and in three districts Boxer got more votes than Jones.
This isn't that rare for strong statewide candidates with no-names as opponents, but the Republican nominee was Bill Jones, the former two-term Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate. He had great name-recognition, and while he was outspent 2-to-1, he still raised $7.3 million.
If a Democratic tide is going to rise in 2006 to sweep in a Democratic Congress in the House it will begin in California.
Take a look...
Here are the 2004 results courtesy the
California Secretary of State (pdf):
DISTRICT - BOX% - BOXvot - JONESvot - GOP REP (REP%)
California-11 - 50.2% - 138K - 128K - Richard Pombo (61%) <<<
California-45 - 49.5% - 114K - 109K - Mary Bono (67%) <<<
California-26 - 48.2% - 124K - 122K - David Dreier (53%) <<<
California-50 - 48.1% - 144K - 144K - Duke Cunningham (58%)
California-24 - 47.3% - 138K - 141K - Elton Gallegly (63%)
California-03 - 45.7% - 136K - 153K - Dan Lungren (62%)
California-25 - 45.6% - 106K - 114K - Howard McKeon (64%)
California-46 - 45.5% - 130K - 139K - Dana Rohrabacher (62%)
California-44 - 44.9% - 104K - 117K - Ken Calvert (62%)
California-52 - 44.4% - 123K - 143K - Duncan Hunter (69%)
California-40 - 43.8% - 099K - 115K - Ed Royce (68%)
California-48 - 43.7% - 131K - 154K - Chris Cox (65%)
Of these 12 districts (actually 11, because the CA-48th will have a special election sometime this year after Chris Cox is confirmed by the Senate to be S.E.C. Chair), all but Lungren's 3rd and Duncan's 52nd are actually worth contesting. That leaves nine districts begging for our attention: CA 11, 45, 26, 50, 24, 25, 46, 44 & 40.
The strong support of most of these Congresspersons in '04 may make such efforts seem like a fool's errand, but you have to consider that in all of the districts we ran stealth Democratic candidates (underfunded party name-holders if you will) against all but one incumbent (Dan Lungren is the former California Attorney General). The number we need to be focusing on is the Boxer votes: BOXvot. If we're able to reasonably maintain the Boxer base of support, if not build on it, we're going to kick a lot of these bastards to K-Street in '06. But that takes a lot of hardwork and we need to begin NOW!
Since LIKE YESTERDAY we needed great candidates in these districts building coalitions, pounding the pavement, shaking hands, recruiting volunteers, establishing precinct captains, IDing voters, refining stump speeches and raising money.
If we're going to take these districts in '06 (or '08) we, the activists, need to IMMEDIATELY begin laying the ground work, and that starts with a candidate search.
I'll be evaluating these districts further in the next few months.