For the full story, see A tale of two District 1’s. This page has my March 11 launch video “The New District 1”, where I explain in outline what happened, and how it created an opening for my campaign. Below the video is a full transcript.
The main update since March 11 is that James Gallagher is the only Republican running in the June primary, so there is no longer even a possibility of “two Republicans winning the top two spots in the primary”. If he manages to win one of the top two spots in the primary, his chances of winning in November are effectively zero — it’s just gerrymandering and math.
This is true even if he wins the June special election (as I expect he will) and switches to Independent, as Kevin Kiley did to compete in the New District 6. Kiley is facing about D+8 (maybe less) — a very difficult bias to overcome. Gallagher would be facing D+10, possibly more.
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Transcript
Hello again.
This is the last of the four initial videos and to me, kind of the fun one to talk about what happened, how did we get this situation? Why am I in District 1 in Santa Rosa?
To be brief, the original district one was this whole upper corner with these three counties and all these counties, and it was solidly Republican. Still is, and there’s a special election because Mr. LaMalfa died. And Gallagher has every expectation to win. I think Mr. Gallagher should win.
So the people in this area, the majority of them have had a representative more in line with their thinking for the most part. Now, Prop 50 was to enable the Democrats to get five seats to counter what happened in Texas and so on and so on. I’m not going to get into that right now. That’s a very complicated situation.
But you know, we already had relatively few Republican seats, nine out of 52, and now they’re hoping to take that down to four.
So in order to do that, they had to divvy up some of the Republican areas. So what we have now is this part of the old District 1 was joined with this more Democrat-leaning area, including Santa Rosa. That’s why I’m in District 1. I used to be in District 4, a solid Democrat district.
So the issue is, it’s only leaning now. It’s like D+10. So it’s a 56-44 kind of split. So the way I see it is the people who used to, you know, the 40% or more in this district who are Republican or leaning that way, might be a little unhappy with being forced to have a Democrat representative.
The Democrats, you know, they’ve been in Democrat districts already. So for them it’s just business as usual.
The opportunity is, if I can persuade the Republican element here, and I’ll be talking to the Republican candidates, that the chances of winning the district are very, very low. Okay? The only way they can do it realistically would be to get the top two spots by splitting the 40ish percent. So each getting 20%, 22% and then somehow hoping that no single Democrat gets more than that. Okay?
Because the simple reality is if when we get to the general election, it’s a Democrat and a Republican, the Democrat wins. There’s just no other way it can be. Okay. The Democrat would have to be horrible, or the Republican would have to be magically good, is the only way that that can happen.
So if I can make that case successfully, it seems to me I should be able to get strong support in the primary from the Republican-leaning part of the district. And if I could even get 34%. Guaranteed one of the two top spots. Can’t be third with 34%. So, that’s why it seems plausible to me.
Now, of course, to win in the general election, I have to be able to persuade at least a few people in the middle that I’m a decent guy. That I’m not just a stealth Republican “right wing” guy. I think I can do that, because I’m not.
And so that’s the basic strategy here, to try to get first or second spot in the primary, by appealing to the people that have been essentially disenfranchised by Prop 50. And I expect they’re not going to be real happy about it. So I’ll talk to them. I’ve talked to a few, but that to me is a very realistic strategy.
So if I can do that, get the second spot, then the general election campaign will be quite interesting because it will be a nonpartisan against a Democrat, almost certainly. And I’ll be able to ask some difficult questions like, how are you going to not toe the Democratic Party line, what will you do to represent almost half of the district?
I can answer those questions. I’ll be interested to see what some of the Democrats have to say.
So anyway, that’s what happened to the district. That’s what I think can happen with the race. And I hope you agree and I hope you’ll share my campaign.
Thanks again for your time.