Saturday Politics: Field Poll Says Newsom Leads; Harris Tied With Cooley

The latest Field Poll shows that in the Lieutenant Governor race Gavin Newsom is leading Abel Maldonado 42-37 while Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley and San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris are basically tied 39-38 for California Attorney General.

I'm pretty sure Gavin will win the LG race but I'm worried about the AG race. The internal details from Field are below:

Cooley and Harris are obtaining broad support of rank-and-file voters within their own respective parties. Among Republicans, Cooley is preferred 71% to 6%, while Democrats are supporting Harris 68% to 13%. Non-partisans and those registered with minor parties, who represent 17% of likely voters, are narrowly backing Harris by a 34% to 32% margin.

Cooley is maintaining large preference leads among voters in the traditionally Republican-leaning regions of Southern California outside of Los Angeles County (47% to 28%) and the Central Valley (44% to 30%). In his home county of Los Angeles, Cooley narrowly trails Harris 43% to 37%. Harris is preferred by a nearly two-to-one margin (52% to 27%) in the San Francisco Bay region where she lives. She also leads in less populated areas of Northern California outside the Bay Area (45% to 23%).

There is also a big coastal county-inland county divide in voter preferences in the A-G race. Cooley leads by eighteen points (46% to 28%) among voters in the state’s less populous inland counties, while Harris is preferred by six points (42% to 36%) among voters living in counties bordering the Pacific Ocean or San Francisco Bay.
Women are backing Harris by eleven points, 43% to 32%. Men are supporting Cooley by twelve points (45% to 33%).

Voters age 65 or older are backing Cooley by five points (44% to 39%). He leads among voters age 40–49 (39% to 34%). Harris is leading Cooley by four points (40% to 36%) among voters 50–64. Voters under age 40 are about evenly divided in their preferences.
White non-Hispanics favor Cooley by eight points (43% to 35%). Harris is preferred by large margins among Latinos and African-Americans. Each of the three Asian-American voter segments examined by the poll were dividing their preferences fairly evenly between the candidates, although large proportions remained undecided.

Cooley is preferred by two points (40% to 38%) among the 55% of voters who either already have voted by mail or intend to do so in the coming days. Among the 21% of voters who have already voted Cooley’s lead is even wider – 46% to 38%. Voters intending to vote at their local precinct on Election Day are evenly divided, 37% for Cooley and 37% for Harris.

SD-15: Openly Gay John Laird Loses Special Election

John Laird will not be rejoining the California LGBT Legislative Caucus this year after all. He lost Tuesday's 15th District State Senate Special Election against Republican Sam Blakeslee. The 15th district seat was previously held by Republican Abel Maldonado, who is now Lieutenant Governor of California and running to hold on to this new post against San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in November.


The official results were

Jim Fitzgerald 8014 5.1% 

Mark Hinkle 3162 2.0% 

John Laird 69649 44.1% 

Sam Blakeslee 77107 48.8%

Unfortunately, the seat will not be up for a vote again until 2012, so that leaves Democrats 2-votes away from the 2/3rds (27 votes) they need in the Legislature's 40-member upper House to pass a budget and raise taxes.

Saturday Politics: CA-33, AD-43, SD-15, CA-AG and CA-LG

Kamala Harris

In today's edition of Saturday Politics we have stories about Karen Bass's run for Congress, developments in the California Attorney General race and details about the new (and the next) Lieutenant Governor of California.

CA-33. Assemblymember Karen Bass path to the United States House of Representatives has been cleared by the decision by a deep-pocketed rival named Howard C. Mandel to not challenge the former Speaker of the Assembly for the Democratic nomination for the 33rd Congressional District, currently represented by retiring Diane Watson. Multiple sources tell MadProfessah that the good doctor, who had been prepared to spend up to $500,000, has been quietly convinced by leaders in the Jewish community that they support Ms. Bass's run for the Congressional seat. This leaves Bass' only remaining challenger the perennial candidate Felton Newell.

AD-43. Following his decisive win in the April 13th special primary election and his primary opponent's withdrawal from the race, Mike Gatto has secured the endorsement of the Stonewall Democratic Club in both races happening June 8, 2010: the special election run-off and the Democratic primary election.

CA Attorney General. While MadProfessah endorsed San Francisco District Attorney on Wednesday, the same day that former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly wrote a check for $4 million to double his campaign war chest for the Democratic nomination for the Attorney General.

CA Lieutenant Governor. The race between Los Angeles City Councilmember Janice Hahn and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has gotten pretty tense. The two ad elaborate, duelling parties at the California Demorcratic Convention in Los Angeles, where neither was able to gather the state party's official endorsement. At the Equality California statewide candidates forum last Sunday, the two refused to share a stage. Interestingly, Hahn easily earned the endorsement of the Stonewall Democratic Club on Monday, despite the fact that Newsom is well-known in the LGBT community as an early champion of marriage equality.

SD-15. In other Lieutenant Governor news, State Senator Abel Maldonado was sworn in this week as the new Lieutenant Governor after winning confirmation a few months after the Assembly rejected his nomination, giving the Republicans 3 of the 8 statewide constitutional offices (including Governor and Insurance Commissioner). Maldonado's ascension leaves his seat in State Senate District 15 open, and openly gay former Assemblyman John Laird has made no secret of his desire to switch the seat to the Democrats. If he wins, he would become only the second openly gay man to serve in the State Senate, following Mark Leno.

That's it for this week. Feel free to send tips for future Saturday Politics stories by twitter (@madprofessah), email or in the comments!

Arnold Picks Rep. Senator To Replace Dem. Lt. Gov.

Photo Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

It's all about Lieutenant Governors today! Since California Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi won the 10th Congressional District race on November 3rd and was sworn in a few days later, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has the opportunity to choose a replacement, which he announced yesterday will be Republican State Senator Abel Maldonado.

Yesterday, MadProfessah attended a forum where the two leading Democratic contenders for Lieutenant Govenor in the June 2010 primary, Los Angeles City Councilperson (15th District) Janice Hahn and State Senator Dean Florez appeared at the monthly Stonewall Democratic Club meeting.

Before they spoke, SDC President John Cleary asked both candidates their view about the Maldonado appointment. Florez said that as someone who will be voting on the matter in the State Legislature within 90 days, he opposed the nomination, primarily because he didn't see why they should allow a Republican governor to replace a Democratic state constitutional officeholder with a Republican. Janice Hahn gave a non-commital response, but both Hahn and Florez thought that either of them could defeat State Senator Jeff Denham, the only Republican who has announced he is running for Lieutenant Governor.

At Calitics, progressive activists received the Governor's creation of State Senate vacancy in a Republican held but Democratic leaning seat with glee:

I am one happy camper. This is perhaps the best news progressives AND Democrats have gotten in this state all year long. I live in SD-15, and Abel Maldonado is, sadly, my State Senator. He is a joke of a Senator, a "moderate" politician when it is convenient for him, a conservative one generally speaking. He only won re-election last year because he and Don Perata cut a terrible deal in 2007, where Perata promised to stop a Democratic primary challenge in exchange for his vote on that budget deal.

But more importantly, this seat - SD-15 - is one of the two seats we need to reach 2/3rds in the State Senate. And like SD-12, it is a majority Democratic seat. The current registration numbers are 41% Dem, 34.5% Rep, and 23% DTS. Arnold Schwarzenegger has just created a huge and invaluable opening for us to break the Zombie Death Cult grip on the State Senate.

Florez referenced the debate on Calitics during his remarks at the SDC forum. It would really be great to have a 2/3rds Democratic majority in the State Senate, but we would still be four seats shy in the 80 seat State Assembly from a 2/3rds Democratic majority in the lower house.

The correct solution is to change the insane 2/3rds requirement for passage of a budget and taxes by enacting the California Democracy Act: "All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote."

I signed a petition to have these fourteen words appear on the November 2010 ballot, and I hope you will too.