[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Doug Paul Davis

The Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert reported yesterday that the California Republican Party poured roughly $345,000 into Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian's state Senate campaign last week. Aghazarian is running for the seat of termed-out Sen. Mike Machado and is opposed by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk who represents Yolo and Solano Counties.

That means that the Republican Party has already dumped over one million dollars into this race. However, as the Capitol Alert points out, that may have more to do with the lack of competitive State Senate Races than anything else.

The same article reported the party donated $595,000 to former Assemblyman Tony Strickland. Strickland is running against former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson down in the Santa Barbara-Ventura area in a campaign to succeed termed-out Sen. Tom McClintock (who is now running for Congress against Charlie Brown). It says: "The races are the only two of the 20 Senate seats up for election in November where competition is expected."

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Upsets were the order of the day in the few contested State Senate races on Tuesday's ballot.

Senate District 3 -- In the marquee contest, Sen. Carole Migdenwas ousted in her bid for re-election by Assemblymember Mark Leno. Lenotook 43 percent of the vote, outpacing former Assemblymember JoeNation, who had 29.3 percent, and Sen. Migden, who finished third with27.7 percent.

Senate District 5 -- Assemblymember Lois Wolk clobbered herprimary opponent and heads into the general election with a head ofsteam. She'll face Assemblymember Greg Aghazarian.  Wolk pulled morethan 12,000 more votes than Aghazarian in the primary -- a healthy signfor her general election prospects in a seat that he GOP has tried towrest from term-limited. Sen. Mike Machado in the past.

Senate District 9 -- Assemblymember Loni Hancock won adouble-digit victory over former Assemblymember Wilma Chan. Hancock'sstrong 56.5-43.5 percent margin bucked massive IE spending against herby tribal gaming interests.

There's more...

by Calitics Editorial Board [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

This is our first attempt at endorsements on a broad scale in the legislature.  It is not comprehensive, we simply don't have the resources to get to every seat. But, we tried to get to most of the competitive seats.  We'll provide a bit of commentary on some of these over the flip. State Senate races tomorrow, and Congressional races on Wednesday. But, today, Assembly races:

AD-08: Mariko Yamada

AD-10: Alyson Huber

AD-15: Joan Buchanan

AD-27: Emily Reilly

AD-37: Ferial Masry

AD-40: Laurette Healey

AD-78: Any Democratic candidate other than Auday Arabo.

AD-80: Manuel Perez
AD-08: Mariko Yamada

Chris Cabaldon has run a textbook 20th Century campaign. He has a good resume and the institutional support.  Yamada has a solid resume of her own but can also claim the support of much of the grassroots.  She is also a tireless advocate of single payer healthcare. We support Yamada as the more progressive candidate.

AD-10: Alyson Huber

We have respected Ms. Huber for a while, and she continued to impress on the Calitics podcast. AD-10 is a district that is rapidly blue-ing, so we have a shot in this open seat.

AD-15: Joan Buchanan

by Barbara Wold [courtesy of Blog for America]

The voting ended late last week and the votes are counted. Members of the Albuquerque DFA-Democracy for New Mexico Meetup group were polled on the candidates they wanted the group to officially endorse in a number of this year's Dem primary races. They included the NM-01 race for U.S. House, three State Senate races and one State House contest. Here are the results and responses from some of the winners:

(Click Read More for the rest of this post)

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Doug Paul Davis

The Vanguard has received word that John Garamendi, Jr. has opted to not challenge Assemblywoman Lois Wolk for the Democratic nomination for the 5th Senate District. That leaves Assemblywoman Wolk from Davis as the only announced Democrat in a bid to succeed current Democratic State Senator Mike Machado.

In 2004, Mike Machado won a very hard fought battle against Stockton Mayor Gary Podesto. In a race that went back and forth up until the end, Machado ended up edging out Podesto by a margin of 52.2 to 47.8.

The closeness of that race and competitiveness of the district will likely make this race one of most heavily watched and financed State Senate races in the state. Indeed, the race has drawn a top notch Republican in Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian.

There is however, word now from some people close to the scene that has suggested that neither the Democratic leadership nor Senator Machado himself are convinced that Assemblywoman Wolk can win this seat. Part of that has to do with the southern portion of the district--the locations that Wolk does not currently represent--being larger than the north. In addition, that portion is much more conservative than the northern part.