The final results for Ventura County appear here ... http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Ventura/59396/173172/en/reports.html
To use this tool, simply select "All" for Vote Type and "All" for Precinct, and then click on Refresh. If you are interested in how the voting went at the two polling places we ran under the Adopt-A-Poll program, select the appropriate precinct number, either "2100" for Cam Heights School or "2102" for the United Methodist Church, and again, click Refresh.
I greatly appreciate everyone's participation at the two polling places. Marianne Slaughter and I were the polling place inspectors, and we would have been lost without your strong sense of civic duty. Unlike many polling places in California, ours were run professionally and without a hitch. Many supporters of Bernie Sanders were very critical about alleged voter suppression efforts in California, especially in regard to the handling of No-Party-Preference (NPP) voters who were supposed to be given their choice of four ballots, one of which was the Democratic ballot. Well this wasn't a problem at our polling places. (However, I did note that many VBM voters reported not receiving their ballots in the mail and others stated that their registration status had been mysteriously changed.)
So what were the results of the primary in Ventura County?
In the Presidential race, Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders, albeit by a close margin of 50.8% to 47.6%. The margin was greater when the polls closed on July 7th but, as expected, narrowed over the intervening weeks as the VBM and provisional ballots were counted. On the Republican side, Donald Trump won with 70.7% of the vote. It is interesting to note that 119,349 votes were cast for the Democratic candidates versus only 70,496 for the Republicans.
Two Democrats will advance to the General Election in the U.S. Senate race, out of a crowd of 34 candidates. Kamala Harris, the candidate endorsed by the California Democratic Party, received 40.0% of the state-wide vote and Loretta Sanchez got 18.9%. Again, this was as expected.
For Congressional District 26, Julia Brownley easily defeated her opponent Rafael Dagnesses 64.0% to 36.0%. In State Senate District 19, Hannah-Beth Jackson won handily 64.1% to 35.9%. Jacqui Irwin also did well with 60.9% of the vote versus 39.1% for her opponent Kerry Nelson in the Assembly District 44 race.
Many of you volunteered your time in the hotly contested race for the Board of Supervisors, Third District. The candidate endorsed by the Ventura County Democratic Party, Carla Castilla, prevailed with 25.2% of the vote, compared to the candidate endorsed by the Ventura County Republican Party, Kelly Long, who had 22.3%. They will face off against each other in the General Election. We will need to work long and hard to ensure that Carla wins and becomes our next Supervisor, taking the reins from our own Kathy Long.
The Primary did not include the Camarillo City Council race, even though two of the council members, Kevin Kildee and Mike Morgan, were in the running for the Supervisorial seat. A dedicated Democrat and member of our Club has announced his candidacy for the City Council ... Jameson Lingl. This is a tough race and Jameson will need our support to win.
So that is how things look after the California Primary. We Democrats have a lot of successes to point to ... but there is work to be done leading to the General Elections. First will be the Presidential Convention later this month. Then we will be phone banking, canvassing, tabling, and performing other campaign activities in support of our many candidates. We will also be holding a Candidates Fundraiser at the home of Chris and Pat Ehret on Saturday, September 17th.
And as usual we will be running our two polling places on November 8th.
We certainly have some busy months ahead of us. If we do our job right, we will be painting the State, County, and our fair City a beautiful blue. And best of all, we will have our first female President!