Terry's Elections Guide and Predictions: California
Governor (Republican-held)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) 55 - Phil Angelides (D) 42
Probably the national leader in combined letters in the major party candidates' last names, that's about as close to interesting as this race gets. Schwarzenegger was considered vulnerable about a year ago, but he hired a Democratic chief of staff, brought in top Bush-Cheney '04 alums for the campaign, and all of a sudden he's not considered incompetent anymore. Neither Angelides nor state controller Steve Westly seemed like an astonishingly great candidate, but they went at each other hard during the primary, which contributed to the problem here: the bitter primary left Democrats depressed and gave Schwarzenegger plenty of negative ammo for the inevitable "even Democrat Steve Westly says that Angelides ... " ads. Can California really not come up with better Democratic candidates?
CA-04 (Republican-held)
John Doolittle (R) 54 - Charles Brown (D) 45
When redistricting in 2001, the two parties in California explicitly reached an agreement that would protect incumbents of both parties, which is perhaps not a smart move when Democrats carry the state by a landslide in every presidential campaign. As a result, state has 53 congressional districts and only one of them wound up being seriously contested in 2004. (And even that one was decided by over ten points.) This year, though, the pro-Democratic environment is breaking some of these districts free. CA-04 is a late bloomer, it's a strong Republican district, and Democratic candidate Charles Brown has not been able to convince Snoopy to campaign with him. I fear this is a loss.
CA-11 (Republican-held)
Jerry McNerney (D) 51 - Richard Pombo (R) 48
Pombo is one of those Republicans you hate: knee-jerk Bush supporter, personally unlikeable and way too close to corrupt interests. National Democrats wanted to nominate Steve Filson, and when grassroots-powered candidate Jerry McNerney won an upset in the primary, the DC establishment begged off. McNerney has run an outstanding campaign, though, and now he's even leading in some polls. One of the lessons I'm going to try to learn from 2006 is how often candidates with an excited volunteer base can pull out a close race. I suspect that they'll be more effective at turning out the vote, and their enthusiasm will spread when their friends, family and colleagues find out that they're so excited about the Democrat running. I could be wrong, but that's why I'm predicting McNerney to pull this one out.
CA-45 (Republican-held)
Mary Bono (R) 59 - David Roth (D) 39
Some are saying this race could be competitive; I don't see it. Mary Bono, Sonny's last wife and heir to his congressional seat, is one of the few Scientologists in Congress. This David Roth was never a member of Van Halen.
CA-50 (Republican-held)
Brian Bilbray (R) 51 - Francine Busby (D) 45
This Republican-leaning district was in the news last June when these two candidates ran a competitive race to see who would succeed currently imprisoned Air Force "Top Gun" alum Duke Cunningham, whose publicly released prison letters show him a worse writer than I was at age eight. Bilbray won the special election by five percent, and while even-numbered special elections usually decide who will win the follow-up race in November, the souring national mood has apparently made this seat competitive again. I'm waiting to be convinced.