Results like those from Tuesday’s primary cause detractors to call California’s four-year-old “top two” election system the “jungle primary” because it often features races with a dozen contestants and completely unpredictable outcomes.
For sure, that makes it more fun both to vote and follow election returns – unless you are a prominent candidate or a boss of either major party.
Focus on just one statewide race for a solid picture of what the top two system can do. This one came within a hair (and a recount might change things back) of absolutely assuring the Republican Party of one of California’s four leading political offices this fall, even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 15 percent.
The race pitted two established, well-funded Democratic candidates against two Republicans, with one more Democrat and a Green Party hopeful in the field. Not as many prospects as in some races, but plenty to scramble establishment eggs.
For the 10.9 percent of the Election Day vote count won by virtually unknown Democrat Tammy D. Blair and Green Laura Wells knocked down the counts of former Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez and state Board of Equalization member Betty Yee. For much of Election Night, it appeared Republicans Ashley Swearengin, the mayor of Fresno, and David Evans, a CPA and former mayor of tiny California City, would meet this fall with no Democratic opposition.
That would have been – and still may be — remarkable since there have been no statewide Republican officeholders in four years.
Mr. Perez edged out Mr. Evans by a mere 2,436 votes, a 21.7 percent performance. He appears headed for a runoff with Ms. Swearengin (who had just 24.4 percent), pending the count of thousands of provisional and damaged ballots, not to mention a potential recall.
Under the previous party primary system, there would have been little remarkable in those numbers. Ms. Swearengin would have been the GOP nominee and the Democratic winner would still be in the balance, but for sure a Democrat and a Republican would have faced off in the fall.
If this kind of narrow race for an office whose occupant is the state’s chief check-writer doesn’t prove that every vote matters, what could? Top two, then, will provide future motivation for two things: It will give voters more reason to participate. It will give parties reason to get organized well enough to avoid matchups between prominent party mates.
There was no such organization in either party this time. The result is that in district after district, races will pit persons of the same parties in runoffs this fall. In runs for Congress alone, seven districts in all parts of the state will see Democrat vs. Democrat and Republican on Republican.
In some, incumbents ran up large primary majorities, but still must run again in the fall, suggesting top two should be tweaked to make winning 50 percent of the primary vote sufficient for election. If that were the case now, Gov. Brown already would have a second term. Similarly, incumbent members of Congress like Xavier Becerra, Tom McClintock, Adam Schiff, Lucille Roybal-Allard and Mike Thompson must contest again in November, despite far outdistancing all who ran against them.
More interesting will be the same-party race pitting Republicans Tony Strickland and Steve Knight in a district stretching from Ventura County to the High Desert portion of Los Angeles County, and another matching first-term Democrat Eric Swallwell and state Senate majority leader Ellen Corbett in the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco. Silicon Valley gets a ballyhooed intraparty race between longtime incumbent Democrat Mike Honda and the well-funded Indian-American Ro Khanna. Members of the minority party in each of those districts can now decide the fall outcomes, exactly what top two intended.
This primary debunked the notion that top two allows only major party candidates onto runoffs. Incumbents Schiff and Thompson both face independents.
It’s all different than after any previous California primary, with incumbents less secure than before and voters with the power they sought when they created top two.
Mr. Elias may be contacted at tdelias@aol.com. His book, “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocQuus.net
