How close is this race, and how much has been spent on it? As close as it can get, and an extraordinary amount for a State Senate seat. The Hannah-Beth team has been maddeningly tight-lipped on internals, but a well-placed person high up in the campaign sent me the following email, with permission to distribute:
Over $10 million has been spent on the campaign.
Over 106,000 voters have already voted in the 19th: 42,033 Dems, 45,692 Reps, 14,322 DTS, in SB as of Thursday; Ventura, LA as of Friday. We expect the real number to be larger.
The race has a razor tight margin according to all polling we have seen for the past five weeks.
Between us, Strickland, and IEs on both of our parts, people have 4 or more pieces of mail everyday.
We have made an amazing grassroots operation clocking over 1500 contacts a day. In total, over 57,000 ids thus far, and while 31,000 of those are Hannah-Beth supporters, that still only accounts for a fraction of the district as a whole. We need walkers Sunday and Tuesday in the Conejo, Simi Valley, and Santa Barbara offices.
Slightly over half our contacts are Hannah-Beth supporters, but Democratic early votes have been beaten by the Repubs (as is usual due to traditional GOP advantages in absentee voting), and it's impossible to say quite how the DTS voters have sorted themselves out. When I asked Hannah-Beth herself directly how the polls looked when I canvassed for her two weeks ago in Thousand Oaks, she wouldn't give me numbers, but said the following:
It's extremely close, but we'd rather be where we are, than where they are.
That means only one thing: this race is ours to win, but only if we get our votes out. To be sure, there are several propositions on the ballot that need our time and effort, but the margins on those races are spread across the entire state of California. This is one race where getting a few hundred extra voters to the polls could truly mean the difference between victory and defeat, for one of CA's most energetic Democratic leaders against one of the GOP's most vile, fraudulent candidates (and that's really saying something.)
If you're in the area and can even spend just a couple of hours getting involved this weekend phonebanking from remote (yes, you can do it--just not through their website) or getting out to canvass (and for you Angelenos, all you have to do is drive up to Thousand Oaks), here's contact the Santa Barbara office for best results:
Phone: (805) 280-2408
Fax: (805) 456-0787
If you live in Ventura, Conejo, Simi Valley or Thousand Oaks, you really need to get involved as we close down to the wire. Here are the addresses:
Simi Valley:
1960 - 03 Sequoia Ave (cross street Los Angeles Ave)
Conejo
810 Lawrence Drive, Suite 124
Newbury Park
Santa Barbara
430 Chapala Street
Santa Barbara
Ventura
701 E Santa Clara Street, Suite 36
Ventura
If you get the campaign's voicemail and could only leave a message, sign up here to volunteer and the campaign will call you back. The campaign's email is jackson4senate@yahoo.com.
Don't let Phony Tony Strickland squeak this one out by a few hundred votes. On Election Day, let's celebrate Democratic victories all the way up, down and mid-ballot, from Obama through Hannah-Beth Jackson and all the way down to Proposition 8's defeat. |
