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SD-15 Results Thread

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We’re waiting for results in the SD-15 race.  Here is the Secretary of State’s webpage for the race. Here’s the first batch:

Jim Fitzgerald 5606 5.8%

Mark Hinkle 1874 2.0%

John Laird 39857 41.5%

Sam Blakeslee 48617 50.7%

UPDATE by Robert: Returns are slowly being updated by the five counties. Here’s the latest, as of 10:16 pm:

Jim Fitzgerald 7277 5.6%

Mark Hinkle 2811 2.1%

John Laird 56653 43.2%

Sam Blakeslee 64352 49.1%

UPDATE by Brian: As of 12:07 AM, with 100% of precincts reporting:

Jim Fitzgerald 8014 5.1%

Mark Hinkle 3162 2.0%

John Laird 69649 44.1%

Sam Blakeslee 77107 48.8%

Sam Blakeslee will be the next Senator in SD-15.  Arnold’s gamesmanship worked like a charm.  By moving this election away from a real election date, he got what he wanted.  From the look of these numbers, I think we have a great shot of winning this election if it was held concurrently with the general in November.  I hope he’s going to pay the extra money that it took to win this seat for Blakeslee out of his own pocket.  

29 thoughts on “SD-15 Results Thread”

  1. Is it my imagination or is it looking a little better tonight than in June?

    A little more turnout too?

  3. Laird would of had a chance in a top 2 environment. Does this mean Sam only has 6 years at best to serve if he doesn’t lose in 2012?  

  4. Santa Cruz/Monterey, where Laird won overwhelmingly, and San Louis Obispo/Santa Barbara, where Blakelee won overwhelmingly.

  5. making Abel Maldonado Lt. Governor would result in another senate seat for the Democrats.

    An Open Letter to the California Senate Democratic Caucus:

    put SD-15 into play. Sure, you could wait until 2012 when the seat comes open – but by then legislative districts will have been drawn by the Prop 11 commission, and who knows what the landscape will look like. Why pass up an opportunity to have a Democratic governor and 2/3rds in the Senate – especially when we can find 3 seats to pick up in the Assembly?

    What a slam-dunk SD15 was! OMG how could anyone have thought that giving Abel the Lt. Gov. spot was anything but an awesome idea!

    I Guess They Don’t Actually Want A 2/3 Majority: ( or maybe “they” are smarter than Robert):

    More damning is the basic philosophy behind this “gee, winning the 15th is gonna be hard” nonsense. If Democrats are scared of winning a seat where they hold a 6 point registration advantage, a seat Obama won by 20 points, then they really have a serious problem providing the leadership this state needs.

    Robert, you are god and so right! Winning the SD-15 was trivial….

    oh wait… John Laird lost???

  6. Could someone explain why it was Maldonado’s confirmation wasn’t delayed long enough to force a November run-off?

  7. I ran phone banks for John Laird in Santa Cruz County for 10 weeks–through both special election cycles. In total, I volunteered over 200 hours for this campaign. And I talked to a lot of volunteers and voters in the process. I can’t say if my observations hold true for the other counties involved, but this is what I heard:

    1. Hundreds and hundreds of volunteers turned out to help. Most said, “I can’t vote for him because the district is so crazy. But he represented us really well in the Assembly. So I wanted to do what I could to help.” Every elected official should be so lucky as to have such a legacy.

    2. Many, many voters we talked to were very, very confused. They didn’t understand the process. They didn’t remember the election. They didn’t get ballots, or didn’t know what they were and threw them away. There’s little doubt in my mind that this depressed turnout.

    3. A lot of people complained about the negative advertising. Big corporations spent almost $2.5 million to mail out and broadcast a lot of lies. Unfortunately, they worked. People did believe them. We heard a fair number of negative comments from people we called. And these were mostly Democrats!

    4. Voters had serious burnout. As a friend pointed out to me this morning, people are burned out in general. A lot are stressed out by economic insecurity. They don’t want to think about another election just two weeks after the primary and yet another less than a month later. They were tired of the ads, the mailers, and the calls.

    The turnout at the polling places I was doing GOTV for yesterday was just horrible. There’s no other way to say it. People yelled at us when we called to try to get them to vote. They hung up on us or quit answering the phone. But, most heartbreakingly, they often said, “I’m not interested.”

    So voters in SD-15 let lies repeated often enough influence their vote. And they just didn’t care enough to even listen. To me, this is a sad state of affairs. As a result, we have let Big Oil buy a seat in our state Senate. We have elected a man who has voted to open our shores to oil drilling, and will again. Who has cut education funding, and will again. Who has cut taxes for wealthy corporations, and will again.

    We will all pay for the indifference of SD-15 voters. As one volunteer said this morning, “the best man did not win.” It makes me sadder than I can say.

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