As mentioned earlier, in San Bernardino County’s four-way race for Assessor Tuesday, challenger Bill Postmus, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, captured more than 46 percent of the vote in his first countywide bid. The incumbent, Don Williamson, ran a distant second finishing nearly 13 points behind. As I’ve also said, a key factor in this result was the presence of two other candidates in the primary, who combined to take about 20 percent of the vote.

It’s important to again emphasize the significance of Postmus’ accomplishment in this race, and how strongly he is positioned for November:

1. Roughly two-thirds of the votes cast for Assessor were for someone other than the incumbent.

2. No incumbent who placed second in a San Bernardino County primary has ever won the runoff. As a general rule, in runoff elections more of the remaining votes against the incumbent tend to go to the remaining challenger.

3. Even Williamson’s razor-thin re-election margin four years ago illustrated his weakness. In the… Read More

Big congratulations to Sacto based political consultant Tab Berg for his win with retired Marine Colonel/Town of Yucca Valley Mayor Paul Cook in the GOP Primary for the 65th AD.

I was Cook’s pollster and have been proud to work for Col. Cook–a true American Hero.

A funny piece of full disclosure–before signing on to do the polling for Cook I had made a financial contribution to one of Cook’s opponents–Jim Ayres. It was at the urging of a friend, I had never met San Jacinto Councilman Ayres.

So while I am confident my polling was good and accurate and helped Tab develop strategy and targeting, I guess you could say Cook won despite me.

Note: I disclosed my contribution to the Cook campaign before being hired and we agreed it didn’t make a difference and it didn’t.… Read More

Orange County had no Congressional contests…

Orange County State Senate races included just one to speak of…the 34th Dem Primary with Assemblyman Tom Umberg v. County Supervisor Lou Correa. Correa won with an 18% margin. Correa owes a big thank you to Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata. This means Republicans get another shot at taking back Correa’s sup seat sometime next year in a Special Election. Correa will face off against Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher who won the GOP nomination.

Orange County State Assembly races included GOP Primaries in the 72nd (Duvall a GBWA client trounced Siminoff a Nygren client). In the 67th (Silva a GBWA client beat McGill and Harman a Coronado Communications client).

In the 69th Dem Primary (Solorio won with a HUGE margin over Alvarez).

OC Treasurer John Moorlach won a seat on the county board of supervisors. Former Assemblywoman Pat Bates fought off a over 2.5 MILLION dollars to be the top vote getter over her very wealthy self-funded opponent.

Sheriff Mike Carona pulled off a 50.9% victory over three rivals. This is an impressive win for the consulting team of Sen. John Lewis… Read More

Updated: 7:00 p.m.

Tuesday’selection in San Bernardino County was characterized by a staggeringly low voter turnout, despite the dogged efforts of many campaigns to stir voters’ interest. Countywide, voter turnout was abysmal at 21.97%. Democratic turnout narrowly exceeded that of Republicans because of several competitive legislative and statewide primaries.

The highest profile candidate in the county, Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus, is running for the countywide office of Assessor. While he made a strong showing with 46.2 percent of the vote, he wasn’t able to avoid a runoff against 12-year incumbent Donald Williamson, who received 33.68 percent of the vote. The main factor forcing a runoff was the presence of two additional candidates on the ballot. Two appraisers from the Assessor’s office filed papers to run after the incumbent had announced his retirement. But when Williamson filed for re-election at the last minute, it was too late for his two subordinates to get out of the race. The result: Williamson’s underlings pulled almost 20 percent of the vote, making a… Read More

This morning, Steve Schmidt, the Governor’s Campaign Manager, released the following exlusive statement to the FlashReport in response to yesterday’s election results:

Today, Governor Schwarzenegger will kick off the general election campaign by traveling through California and talking to voters about his vision for moving California forward. The Governor’s optimistic, hopeful campaign stands in stark contrast to Phil Angelides’ Democratic primary campaign of anger, negativity and policies that would set California back. Now is the time when California voters will begin to see even more sharply the clear choice they will have in November. It will be a choice between the pessimism and typical politics of Phil Angelides, and the bold leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger. … Read More

Good morning FR readers! Wow, what a primary night. First and foremost, I want to extend a very big THANK YOU to FR’s frequent Guest Editor, Nick Romero, for getting up really early this morning to put together our comprehensive main page compendium of today’s political news stories! If you will recall, my ‘day job’ is working for Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona — a great conservative who was up for re-election yesterday. Well, we didn’t get the unofficial final results until after 3am, but my boss was re-elected to a new four year term over three opponents with 50.9% of the vote! Congratulations Sheriff Carona and to your entire campaign team! The immediate benefit to FR readers throughout the fall will be that I will be a bit less distracted since I won’t be worrying about a run-off for my boss, and will be able to put much more time into the website! Yeah! Anyways, I thought I would take a few minutes and make some general observations about election night:

Bay Area election results always remind me how much I am a fish out of water in this ridiculous part of the state. In the last hour, former Congressman Ron Dellums won the Oakland mayor’s race outright. Dellums got 50.2 percent of the vote to City Council President Ignacio DeLaFuente’s 33 percent. I was fooled by the number of DeLaFuente signs in my neighborhood, but the election results remind me once again how @%&$ liberal this city/region is. One friend said that her mother-in-law and friends were supporting Dellums because they thought his connections to the federal government would bring more money to Oakland. Like money is the problem here. But for liberals, it always boils down to more money. They never seem to question how the money is actually spent. For example, my fellow… Read More

Good morning FR readers! Wow, what a primary night. First and foremost, I want to extend a very big THANK YOU to FR’s frequent Guest Editor, Nick Romero, for getting up really early this morning to put together our comprehensive main page compendium of today’s political news stories! If you will recall, my ‘day job’ is working for Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona — a great conservative who was up for re-election yesterday. Well, we didn’t get the unofficial final results until after 3am, but my boss was re-elected to a new four year term over three opponents with 50.9% of the vote! Congratulations Sheriff Carona and to your entire campaign team! The immediate benefit to FR readers throughout the fall will be that I will be a bit less distracted since I won’t be worrying about a run-off for my boss, and will be able to put much more time into the website! Yeah! Anyways, I thought I would take a few minutes and make some general observations about election night: