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SD-16: Perez concedes

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Special Election turnout does in Central Valley Democrat

by Brian Leubitz

Try as the Democrats did, they just could not push Leticia Perez past Andy Vidak. Today, she conceded the race:

Kern County Supervisor and Democrat Leticia Perez has conceded to her opponent, Republican farmer Andy Vidak, ending a costly and heavily contested race for the Central Valley seat.

“The voters have spoken and I want to congratulate Andy on his victory,” Perez said in a press release, adding that “Andy has earned the right to represent us in Sacramento.”(SacBee)

You would expect this to be an opportunity for a heavily contested race when it comes up again in 2014. Vidak will have incumbency, but a strong Democratic candidate might be able to leverage the higher turnout in a general election to flip this seat.

3 thoughts on “SD-16: Perez concedes”

  1. Democrats Foolishly Blow an Easy Win

    By Tony Quinn, July 25th, 2013

    So what is the lesson here: first stay out of other people’s primaries.  Had Florez been allowed to run, she and Perez would have had to sell themselves to Democratic voters in the district, and Perez would have been a stronger general election candidate.  As it was, Perez seemed little more than the candidate of Sacramento money, and in a rural small town district like this, voters don’t like that.

  2. I am a little confused by this district.  The Republican registration is around 46% and the Democratic registration is about 30%.  There is no other district in the state (nation?) in which the numbers look this bad but we came so close.  Does anyone have insight as to why this is a competitive district?

  3. what I saw was that SD-16 is a solidly Democrat district with just over 50% registered as Democrats and Repubs in the low 30s.  No where else in the country in the past year has such a Democrat stronghold totally failed to elect a Democrat.  This was a matter of Party bigwigs taking the electorate as chumps.  This will happen more often as Party Bosses put Party ahead of the People (on both sides of the aisle).

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