A Banner Year for California Democrats: Better Than the Post Watergate 1976 Election?

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

Some astute political observers are seeing a parallel between this year’s general election in California and the elections of 1976 when the Republican Party cratered in the aftermath of Watergate. I remember 1976 very well. It was the year I graduated from law school, passed the bar, became an attorney, and began working for an Assemblymember from Southern California as his Administrative Assistant in his Sacramento office.

With a remarkably unpopular Republican President in the White House, Democrats surged both in party registration and votes at the polls and had a two-thirds majority in both the Assembly and the California State Senate. Jerry Brown had just been elected Governor and I had a great time as a 25 year old kid drafting a slug of legislation much of which wound its way through the labyrinth of the legislative process and became law. It was an exciting time.

Lest you think this is just wistful thinking, take a look at some figures Bob Mulholland, campaign advisor to the California Democratic Party, sent me last week. You’ll be surprised that the surge of Democratic voter registration and collapse of the California Republican Party is, if anything, even more pronounced than it was in 1974--at the height of the Watergate scandals.

At the close of registration before the June Primary, I wrote about this voter registration surge for Democrats and what it means for some of the closer races for seats in the California legislature where Democrats already enjoy a 48 to 32 margin in the Assembly over Republicans and a 25 to 15 advantage in the State Senate. Others have written about U.S. House races and how the Democrats are poised to contest Republicans in some California districts that were entirely out of reach in past elections and stand to pick up seats in November.

Looking at the data from the California Secretary of State’s Office, Mulholland notes:

“Of the 411,034 new voters registered in CA (1/22 - 5/19/08), Democrats gained 304,454 new voters while the Republicans gained a measly 14,969 new voters. Democrats accounted for 74.1% of the overall registration change compared to just 3.6% for Republicans. More than five times as many people registered as Decline to State than registered as Republicans (20.8% vs. 3.6%).”

He then compares this to the registration figures between April 11, 2004 and the close of registration on October 16, 1974, and observes: