California will have a Democrat and a Republican running for Governor in the general election in November. Can you believe that? What is the big deal, you ask?
If you do not live in California, you may not understand our surprise. Pundits and talking heads had predicted we would have two Democrats running against each other in the race for Governor. Remember, this is California. We do things a little differently.
In our primaries, all candidates for each office are on the same ballot, regardless of party affiliation. Correct! There isn’t a separate ballot for Republican candidates and another ballot for Democratic candidates. All the candidates are on the same ballot. The top two winners go at each other in November, regardless of party. Go figure.
The race for governor will feature Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and John Cox, a Republican. The race for Lieutenant Governor will be between two Democrats. In the race for US Senator, Feinstein, an 84-year-old Democrat garnered 1.7 million votes, and Kevin De Leon, a 51-year-old Democrat received 441 thousand votes. All the Republicans running for the Senate seat received fewer votes so they won’t be on the ballot in November. (Shades of Reagan’s debate with Mondale: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.") The six Republican Candidates split 1.1 million votes. One wonders if the results would be different if the GOP had united behind one candidate.
There are 53 congressional districts in the state, most represented by Democrats. An independent commission was established a number of years ago to design the congressional districts. It reduces the influence of one party over the other and avoids the gerrymandering that results when the legislatures design the districts. They do a pretty good job. Democrats polled well in most of the heavy Republican congressional districts. Republicans did well enough to get on the ballot in most heavy Democratic districts. This resulted in candidates from two parties in most district elections in November. Go figure.
Several counties in California use a vote-by-mail only system for this primary. Sacramento County, as an example, is reporting a 40% voter turnout, a historic high for a mid-term election in the last few decades. If these numbers hold, it bodes well for the turnout in the 2020 elections when the whole state will vote by mail.
I like the new vote-by-mail system and I like the top-two system for primaries. I do not know, yet, if either is better than the old systems, but they are more convenient and will change campaign dynamics in the years to come.
If most people are voting by mail, the campaign is really over a few weeks before Election Day. If that discourages candidates from mailing tons of printed material or reduces the number of TV ads, that would really be plus for the trees and us.
