Gubernatorial race & Downticket races & California politics & National politics 10 Oct 2006 11:32 pm
California bucking national voting trend?
There was an intriguing report on tonight’s KTVU (the Bay Area Fox affiliate) “News at Ten” by political reporter Randy Shandobil. The gist was that while Democrats may be salivating at the prospect of retaking the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994, due to a series of scandals and other setbacks that have befallen the Republican Party, in California just the opposite trend may occur, due to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s double-digit poll lead. Shandobil outlined four statewide downticket races that some political pundits are predicting could go Republican in four weeks: lieutenant governor, controller, insurance commissioner, and secretary of state. Dan Schnur, visiting lecturer at the Center on Politics, said that he thought some Democrats might sit this election out if Angelides’ fortunes don’t improve:
In all likelihood, if you’re a Democrat in the first week of November and you know that Angelides is going to lose, and that he’s probably going to lose badly, it’s awfully tough to motivate yourself off the couch and down to the polls.