I was originally typing this as a comment in the open thread, but saw it grow and grow to the point that I decided to write a diary comparing my predictions to the actual results. Overall, my predictions statewide were pretty much spot-on. I may have been off by a few percentage points in the statewide races, but not too shabby. The district races and ballot measures, on the other hand, some were way off due to lack of polling and information. Without further Apu, here goes.
Governor – Likely to Strong Brown; Brown by 14.33% in my number predictions – (Brown by 11.9%) – pretty close though a little less than I was hoping for with the way voters were pissed at Whitman running ads nonstop
Lt. Gov. – Lean Newsom – (Newsom by 10.4%) – looks like I underestimated Newsom, especially with a rare moderate and Hispanic Republican who was also the quasi-incumbent. Being associated with “16%” Arnold likely turned out to be the drag I predicted
Attorney General – Toss-Up – (Still not yet called with Cooley leading by 0.3%) – right on the mark here, regardless of whether it ends up being Harris (please!) or Cooley; I’m a nervous wreck watching this one seesaw back and forth!
Secretary of State – Solid Bowen – (Bowen by 15.8%) – little less than predicted but still good
Treasurer – Solid Lockyer – (Lockyer by 19.7%) – almost on the mark
Controller – Strong to Solid Chiang – (Chiang by 18.1%) – almost on the mark here too
Insurance Commissioner – Likely to Strong Jones – (Jones by 12.6%) – another one that was reasonably on target
School Superintendent – Toss-Up – (Torlakson by 9.4%) – didn’t have much information so I just threw a prediction out there
The ballot measures I was mostly WAY off; they were mostly shots in the dark due to a dearth of information about how they were faring, because 19, 23, and 25 stole the show. Maybe from now on I’ll just give my recommendations.
Prop 19 – Lean Yes – (No by 8%)
Prop 20 – Toss-up/lean No – (Yes by 22.8%)
Prop 21 – Toss-up – (No by 16.8%)
Prop 22 – Toss-up/lean No – (Yes by 22%)
Prop 23 – Likely No – (No by 22.4%) – wow, this of all ballot measures was where I was actually close!
Prop 24 – Toss-up – (No by 17.2%)
Prop 25 – Likely Yes – (Yes by 9.4%) – then again, with this, 19, and 23 gobbling up all the airtime, it should have been easier to predict these than the other 6
Prop 26 – Toss-up – (Yes by 4.6%) – not too shabby for a ballot measure that received little attention
Prop 27 – Toss-up – (No by 19.2%)
U.S. Senate – Lean Boxer; Boxer by 6.67% – (Boxer by 9.4%) – I knew all along that Boxer would put up a helluva fight and win similar to 1998.
CA-03 – Toss-Up/Tilt Lungren; Lungren by 3.75% – (Lungren by 7.9%) – a little off, but I knew it was still a fight, and putting resources into this race may have helped us downticket in AD-05
CA-11 – Lean McNerney; McNerney by 2.75% – (McNerney by 0.3%; by 421 votes with thousands more still to be counted) – closer than predicted
CA-18 – Likely Cardoza; Cardoza by 10.75% – (Cardoza by 15%) – better than predicted
CA-20 – Lean Costa; Costa by 2.75% – (Vidak by 0.2% pending absentee ballot counts)
CA-44 – Lean to Likely Calvert; Calvert by 13.17% – (Calvert by 11%) – another bull’s-eye; a shame we didn’t invest more here after 2008
CA-45 – Likely Bono Mack; Bono Mack by 15% – (Bono Mack by 10.1%) – a little less than predicted but hey, I’m not complaining!
CA-47 – Lean Sanchez; Sanchez by 8.25% – (Sanchez by 8.7%) – pretty close to the mark here
SD-12 – Toss-up/tilt Caballero – (Cannella (R) by 6%) – have to look into this one a bit more deeply
SD-34 – Likely Correa – (Correa (D) by 27%) – guess I took his near-loss in 2006 a bit too seriously
AD-05 – Toss-up – (Pan (D) by 2.8%) – one of those toss-ups that is great to see…one that breaks our way!
AD-10 – Toss-up/tilt Huber – (Huber (D) by 7.8%) – similar to Correa
AD-15 – Tilt/lean Buchanan – (Buchanan (D) by 5%) – another bull’s-eye
AD-30 – Lean Valadao – (Valadao (R) by 24.6%) – way off here. I guess from now on, anybody but a Florez or a Parra! Not sure if Dean Florez plans on running for CA-20 if Vidak does win or when Costa retires (if he does hold on this year).
AD-33 – Lean Achadjian – (Achadjian (R) by 21.2%) – looks like I was right in saying we have a long way to go in the southern Central Coast outside Santa Barbara.
AD-36 – Lean to Likely Knight – (Knight (R) by 15.8%) – should have gone with police officer Watkins in the primary
AD-68 – Lean Mansoor – (Mansoor (R) by 11.8%) – Nguyen was a great candidate, but we still have a lot of work to do to win in OC outside Santa Ana/Anaheim.
AD-70 – Lean to Likely Wagner – (Wagner (R) by 20.9%) – I thought a close race in this district with Fox’s stronger-than-average campaign and Wagner’s presence (or lack thereof) seemed too good to be true. While Obama won this Newport Beach-centric district, we still have work to do to build up the D bench here.
And finally, some races that were not on my radar screen but from what I had heard may have been in trouble should have been paid more attention:
AD-35 – (Williams (D) by 8%) – This is a very Democratic area; what happened? Was turnout here very low too? The Dem numbers in Santa Barbara seem much smaller than usual; usually SB is about on par with California as a whole. A California political neophyte who only saw these election results would think Santa Barbara was a swing county, rather than being a bellwether for how the state goes.
AD-53/54 – (Butler (D) by 7%/Lowenthal (D) by 13%) – Was turnout in the normally Democratic South Bay L.A., despite fellow South Bayers Bowen and Chiang winning in landslides at the top of the ticket, depressed too?
I was expecting Newsom to prevail by the margin he did actually. Maldonado was dirt poor throughout the campaign and Newsom’s attack ads constantly referred to Maldonado as a “Sacramento Legislator.” Maldonado didn’t have the money to hit back or use some of the dirt on Newsom against him.
And I was shocked that Harris is at worst an even bet to pulling it out, that Field Poll showing her holding narrow leads in LA county and with Independents wasn’t an outlier, there was something in the water here. It helps also that Harris was on the air long before Cooley did. Cooley might of been asleep at the wheel thinking he had this race in the bag because of Harris’ percieve Achilles Heel when it came to the death penalty and her record in SF.
Prop 23 was left for dead by its supporters months ago. They instead dumped their money into Prop 26 which was considered as Prop 23’s evil twin. I’m guessing because Prop 26 prevents pollution fees from being easily enacted. Prop 25 passing was no surprise. After seeing Sacramento take 100 days to pass a budget past the deadline people realized the 2/3rds majority to pass a budget was stupid. Also the clause about legislators losing their pay permanently each day the budget was late also was appealing to people wanting to give Sacramento a kick in the groin for their incompetence.
Prop 19…I guess people aren’t ready to legalize it! It even went down in Humboldt county by 6 points. If you don’t know Humboldt, that’s where all the weed in the state is grown! Guess voter’s aren’t ready to let Timmy smoke yet! (Look up that reference 😉) But I think the real reason why there were some glaring flaws with the proposition itself, and Schwarzenegger recently signed a bill stating that if you’re caught with just enough marijuana for yourself, you’re only given what amounts to a traffic ticket.
Expected that the races in the Central Valley would play out as expected. (Cardoza was a surprise though.) The GOP has been harping on the water issue big time. Though Fran Florez being crushed by a huge margin is surprising. Guess voters were turned off by the blood feud between the Florez and Parra families.
isn’t Cannella (R)? (I’m not actually sure, I just remember reading that an R had won in that district.)
AD-35 was close the last time it was open in 2004. Mike Stoker is a moderate Republican and had good name recognition, but the district is very Democratic, so Das Williams pulled it off. AD-53 has very soft Democratic support sometimes, as does AD-54. Lowenthal only won with 56% in 2008, while Obama won over 60% in the district. SD-12 was one I was very reluctant about, but I also ranked it toss-up/tilt D. Merced and the portions of Stanislaus cancel out the Monterey County portion, which is where the Democrats are.