Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris lead the way for a strong night for Democrats
by Brian Leubitz
While the presidential race wasn’t as close as some had expected, the election results were good for the Democratic Party. In the Senate race, AG Kamala Harris got over 40% of the vote, and will face Rep. Loretta Sanchez in a D-on-D statewide race. Think about that fact: there will be no Republican competitor in the Senate race of the largest state of the union. The Republicans can point at Schwarzenegger or Abel Maldonado for that, but a dysfunctional Republican party that has the same xenophobic tendencies as the larger national GOP looks to be the real culprit. The Nation has a good look at the CRP in tatters:
Under California’s nonpartisan “blanket primary” law, which was enacted by the voters in 2010, Tuesday’s Senate primary ballot featured all the candidates on one list. Democrats, Republicans, and several dozen third-party and independent candidates competed against one another in a race where only the top two finishers could earn a place on the November ballot. That would not have been much of a challenge for a functional Republican Party. But it was an insurmountable challenge for the California Republican Party. Several GOP contenders hit the campaign trail, but none of them got anywhere close to being competitive. They simply split a minority of the vote and languished in single digits.
California is a minority-majority state already. This is the way the rest of the nation will look soon enough, and if the Republicans continue on this Trumpian path, they will find this fate on a larger scale.
On another note, Andy Pugno, the Prop 8 lawyer who fought to the bitter end to protect inequality and who supports a complete abortion ban, appears to have lost in his attempt to get to the Top-2 portion of the AD-6 Race.
More locally, the San Francisco Bay Area passed a $12 regional parcel tax, even with the 2/3 requirement, that will go to help fund projects to save the Bay. And DCCC races across the state may take a little while to fully sort out.
There are still a few “close contests“, but in the one statewide race, you would have to say the big loser is the California Republican party.