THE BUZZ: Congratulations everyone. After months of knocking on doors, passing out lawn signs and fighting your opponents on Twitter, you've finally reached election day. In a few hours, we'll get to see if those diligent efforts will bear any fruit. We don't like to play favorites here at Playbook, but there are certainly some races we're watching more closely than others tonight. In a year where Democrats nationally are expected to take a beating at the ballot box, even some liberals in deep blue California are facing headwinds, driven mostly by worries about public safety, homelessness and, of course, inflation. Here are a few questions we're mulling as we wait for polls to close: Who is going to face off with Rob Bonta? The incumbent attorney general, a Democrat, faces his first statewide election tonight after being appointed to the job in 2020 by Gov. Gavin Newsom . Bonta spent much of his career in the Assembly championing criminal justice reform policies, which have been scrutinized in recent months as crime has spiked in certain parts of the state. It's almost certain Bonta will get into the top-two runoff. The real question is who of the three leading non-Democrats will be there with him. On the right you've got Nathan Hochman , a former U.S. assistant attorney general who is endorsed by the CA GOP. Then, even further to the right, you've got Eric Early — a longtime Donald Trump supporter who spent much of last year helping the effort to recall Newsom. In the middle-ish, you've got Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert , who spent much of her career as a Republican but is running as a no-party preference, hoping her record of advocating for victims and prosecuting the Golden State Killer is enough to entice voters who might be fed up with the Democratic establishment. But the most recent polling shows her in a distant fourth place with only 6 percent of likely voters in support. The best case scenario for Bonta is to run against someone he can paint as a radical Trump supporter — that's much easier to do with Early on the general ticket. If Hochman defies polling and comes in second tonight, it'll mean a harder few months for Bonta leading up to November. Will Chesa Boudin get recalled? The San Francisco district attorney faces a well-funded recall campaign that is set up to be a litmus test of feelings about public safety and crime in one of the nation's most liberal cities. Boudin, a longtime public defender, is considered a leader of the national movement for criminal justice reform . Boudin became a target of a campaign buoyed by deep-pocketed tech and real estate interests that has tapped into voters' anxieties about crime. Those who want to remove him see a reckless and incompetent prosecutor who has undermined public safety by prioritizing defendants, seeking lesser charges or avoiding jail time with pretrial diversion programs. Polls suggest he's likely to lose. If that's the case, Mayor London Breed gets to name a successor. Will Los Angeles give an outright majority to conservative Sheriff Alex Villanueva and a plurality to ex-GOP Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso? It's going to be a tense night for progressives in LA as two conservative candidates are poised to rake in a good chunk of the electorate. LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is running for reelection. Despite being a registered Democrat and running in 2018 on progressive reform platforms, his tenure has been marked by scandal and conservative rhetoric that has made him a darling of right-wing media figures like Tucker Carlson. With a low turnout expected, however, there's a good chance Villaneuva could cruise to victory without many speed bumps. Former Republican-turned-independent-turned Democrat Rick Caruso is also one to watch in the mayoral race tonight. He's spent more than $37.5 million of his personal fortune flooding the airwaves with ads, and despite jumping into the race late has managed to mount a serious challenge to Rep. Karen Bass. The latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, puts him six points behind the congresswoman. Will Republican challengers knock out GOP Reps. Young Kim and David Valadao? There's a chance the Republican incumbents could get knocked out of their own battleground districts in the primary — and either would be disastrous for the GOP. Rep. Young Kim's challenger, Greg Raths, is a pro-Trump local councilman recently accused of making anti-Semetic comments. Rep. David Valadao, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, is facing a challenge from Chris Mathys, a businessman who ran for Congress in 2018 in New Mexico. Will Democratic challengers knock out progressive Assemblymember Alex Lee? Assemblymember Alex Lee, a San Jose Democrat, is facing four challengers, three of them Democrats, in his re-election bid to represent the newly-drawn 24th Assembly district, which includes Milpitas, Fremont, Newark and parts of San Jose. But a PAC backed by the California Association of Realtors and the California Apartment Association is spending big to oppose Lee, and could knock him out of contention for the general election. Can independent Michael Shellenberger make it to the gubernatorial runoff? Let us be abundantly clear: Newsom is not vulnerable this year. But we are interested in seeing who is going to be listed next to him on the November ballot. State Sen. Brian Dahle is the Republican endorsee, but an independent candidate, Michael Shellenberger, has received some notable attention (and cash). Shellenberg lives in Berkeley and is a well-known author and critic of San Francisco politicians. He ran unsuccessfully in 2018, getting knocked out of the primaries by Republican John Cox. But this year he's got a bit more fuel under him — venture capitalist David Sacks is backing him, putting up $150,000 to help pay for advertisements. BUENOS DÍAS, good Tuesday morning. There's still time to fill out and drop off your ballot if you haven't done so already, and per, Political Data Inc.'s ballot tracker, most of you are cutting it close. As of Monday evening only 15 percent of ballots were returned. Get on it! TONIGHT: Join Alex Nieves, Lara Korte and Jeremy White from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. PT for a live chat on the POLITICO homepage as we watch results roll in. Got a tip or story idea for California Playbook? Hit us up jwhite@politico.com and lkorte@politico.com or follow us on Twitter @JeremyBWhite and @Lara_Korte. QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Sen. [Mark] Kelly was shot at over Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, so there's a zero percent chance he'd be intimidated by this." Kelly spokesman Jacob Peters on the pressure from Democratic powerbrokers to get the lawmaker to support LA Mayor Eric Garcetti's nomination as ambassador to India, via POLITICO's Christopher Cadelago. TWEET OF THE DAY: Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) on the New York Times describing him as a "former" senator: "The New York Times appears to be putting me out to pasture. While some would find that delightful, I'm still very much here. Lots of housing work to do!" WHERE'S GAVIN? Nothing official announced. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment