Election Results Edition

June 4, 2008

There is most excellent news to report. Proposition 98 went down in defeat and it was really not even close. Statewide 61% voted no. Marin county voted no 67.3%, Sonoma 69%, and San Francisco voted no with a whopping 74.67%. Apparently, 99 was fine winning statewide by 62.5%. Marin county voted yes on 99 by 64.65%, Sonoma by 69.5%, and San Francisco by 71.22%.

CD-3 State Senate Race aka Rumble in the Bubble

Congratulations Mark Leno!

Districtwide, Mark Leno got 43%, Nation got 29.3%, and Carole Migden got 27.7%. Joe Nation won Marin County with 42.82%, Leno with 34.77%, and Migden 22.15%. Joe Nation also won in Sonoma county with Nation getting 50.3%, Migden getting 27.3%, and Leno 22.1%. Leno owes a lot to San Francisco county as they really came out for him. Leno got a whopping 56.92% or 27,609 votes. Joe Nation only got 11.08% of San Francisco vote, where Migden got 31.79%.

Joe Nation got 24, 525 votes from the Northbay, but Leno got 27,609 from San Francisco. A poor showing in San Francisco got really hurt Nation. Another possible thing to look at was the influence of Proposition 98 which could have brought out more liberal renters from San Francisco, and that could have helped Leno. Coming into the race late and not getting the prime endorsements played a role, but also the 18 separate hit pieces couldn’t have helped. Mark Leno was able to secure the key endorsements and even dual endorsements that left Nation out in the cold. I sensed that there was still a lot of hard feelings against Nation running against Woolsey that was stronger than the annoyance at Leno for running against Migden.

Let’s hope that Mark Leno can reform the elections and deal with the negative influence of Independent Expenditure groups. Clean Money legislation is so very needed.

The Bad News: Turnout

We all should be embarrassed by the abysmal turnout. California had a 22.2% turnout. Marin county had 34.48% turnout. Sonoma had a 37.7% turn out, and San Francisco had a 18.22% turnout. What is that? That is horrible. I know it can get worse and has been worse in the past, but that’s just awful. We got to do better for November. Why can’t we get 98% turnout in a free country?