Election Update, Election Downdate - Your Call
Oh, and 57.7% of Californians are Feckless Lumps of Carbon
First, let’s start with an election update since the earlier - much earlier - posting of the “Red Trickle.”
While Nevada is still out – can anything good come out of a late night in Vegas? – it appears Republican Adam Laxalt has taken the lead there, while the likelihood of a Blake Masters win in Arizona seems to be fading…a bit…maybe…we’ll see as Maricopa County – that’s where Phoenix is – has just “apologized” for a vote tabulating machine error that may have affected 7% of the ballots.
If those two states hold as is, that would mean the Warnock/Walker run-off in Georgia would determine control of the Senate…again, as Warnock prevailing keeps the Democrats at 50 and Kamal on the hot seat.
The House – as everyone has noted – is closer than expected but will almost certainly be under Republican control come January.
As to statehouses, their still remains a chance of Karizona, the Oregon race is still close to call (despite Oregon Public Broadcasting to call it for the Democrat, no one else has), and the Republican Lombardo has opened up a tiny bit of breathing room over Democrat incumbent Sisolak.
Again, the red trickle is a surprise but it may just be baaaarely enough to make a big difference in DC. A bit like a ranked college football team having to kick a field goal in overtime to beat a division 2 team they scheduled as an early season warm-up, but a win none the less (ugh.)
As for the subhead line above, here is the California-centric piece, which ran this morning on the California Globe – you can visit the site at: https://californiaglobe.com/
57.7 % - That’s How Many Californians Officially Don’t Care
Oh, and Los Angeles is Schizophrenic, By the Way
There was no red wave Tuesday night, so the question of whether or not it would finally crest the Sierras became moot even before California’s polls closed.
In the statewide races, those candidates with a “D” next to their name – despite their gross incompetence, ethical ickiness, and/or obvious naked self-interest – all won rather easily.
As of this writing, Gavin Newsom got 57.7% of the vote, a comfortable number, but also a fascinating one. That’s because it is exactly the same percentage that, on average, the other, save one, state office candidates got.
Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner – their average vote was 57.7% of the electorate, with a high of 58.1% and a low of 57.2% bookending the races.
Lanhee Chen – despite being vastly more qualified than opponent Malia Cohen and actually being endorsed by major newspapers and having enough money to be competitive and running a strong campaign – cut that number by 4 points – Cohen got 53.7% - but only by 4 points. In other words, running an essentially best-case-scenario campaign netted Chen only an extra 260,000 or so votes compared to other weaker and/or poorly funded and/or no hope Republicans.
(Both Alex Padilla’s Senate victory – he got 59% - and Tony Thurmond’s unconscionable re-election with 62% involved somewhat different dynamics – the federal aspect for Padilla and the hysterically theoretical non-partisan nature of the Superintendent of Public Instruction office can account for the slightly different results.)
What this means is that 57.7% of Californians are, for all practical purposes, incapable of getting beyond base party identification, aggressively not paying attention, and utterly uninterested in the reality of the state.
While that is extremely encouraging for the one-party oligarchy that runs California, that does not bode well for the future of the state. In other words, the Sacramento Blob can sleep safely tonight, while 42.3% of Californians are thinking about sleeping safely in another state as soon as they can.
Now, it may still be possible – kinda sorta-ish possible – that Republicans will see gains in state house, but whether or not they will be enough to end the Democrat’s super-majority in the Assembly is not yet clear.
On a positive note, at this point it seems that multiple congressional seats are still in play for Republican gains.
And on a very weird note, there is Los Angeles. Extremely troublingly – the county tossed out sheriff Alex Villanueva, the one elected official who actually did something about the city’s homeless problem but the city still might elect developer Rick Caruso – who campaigned hard on the same issue – its mayor.
Caruso currently has about a 3 point lead over LA machine-made Karen Bass, though, as has been seen before, that may change. But while “Angelenos,” as the departing, but not to India, Eric Garcetti would say, may very well have chosen an independent, not beholden to the machine, and business-oriented mayor, it also appears they elected the certifiable, hard left, recommended by the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America Kenneth Mejia as City Controller.
The LA-DSA had other successes Tuesday, with actual DSA member Hugo Soto-Martinez (a prime suspect in the leaking of the infamous Nury Martinez, et. al. racism tape - see here:
poised to win his city council race and it’s “recommended” (the DSA, for some obscure reason almost assuredly tied to the byzantine internal organizational structures of every leftist group ever, distinguishes between endorsements and recommendations) candidate Katy Young Yaroslavsky taking hers.
The other two council races saw contradictory results. On the plus side, tough-on-homelessness Traci Parks put the final dagger in outgoing Councilman Mike Bonin’s political career by defeating his pro-current homelessness situation acolyte Erin Darling.
On the flip side, Tim McOsker – such a machine creature he could have been built to spec – will take a seat on the council. Not only does McOsker ooze status quo - he’s so inside he’s practically politically agoraphobic – he is an actual real-life honest-to-God member of the homeless-industrial complex, serving on the board of Linc Housing, an organization that uses public money to build “supportive” housing for the homeless.
The sun will rise tomorrow – whether or not it has set on California forever is up in the air.
Note – the specific numbers referenced in this article may change but the main premise will not.