California 50 Post Mortem

Brian Bilbray defeated Francis Busby last night 49% to 45% in a special election for the CA-50 US House seat. They'll do it again in November, though it would be highly unlikely that Busby could win a general election in this heavily republican district.

Both the Democrats and the republicans can see some hope in these results in what wasn't exactly a bellweather election as the Washington Post called it. This was an extremely convoluted race with numerous facets that makes it pretty hard to use to do much tea leave reading, but let's take a look.

This was a special election that was held on the same day as California's primary election. The conventional wisdom said this would be an advantage for Busby due to the "hotly" contested Democratic primary for Governor. This was probably untrue. I don't think a lot of Democrats in California are too damn excited about either candidate and Busby herself probably drew out most of the Democratic voter that participated. She would have probably won or at least made it even closer in an "off day" election. A primary is still a traditional election day and that is going to favor the party with the voter registration lead every time, and the republicans have a fourteen point registration advantage in this district.

Also, since this election was a primary, both candidates were also running to be on November's ballot. In the republican primary, Bilbray only amassed 32117 votes compared to the over 60,000 he received in the special election with very little voter drop off. Bilbray's primary opponent's constituencies obviously put him over the top.

That being said, a four point loss in a heavily republican leaning district by a candidate that made a major gaffe in the last week of the campaign does seem to bode well for the Democrats. This race was too close and the republicans spent too much money on it to claim the narrative of beating back a Democratic wave, especially since many independent voters, who's anger with Bush have been rising in leap and bounds, probably skipped the race since it was indeed held on a primary day. I'm sure some independents following the race closely enough to want to turnout for Busby were turned off by the incessant playing on the radio of Busby saying, "You don't need papers to vote." to a Spanish speaking attendee at a rally.

So what does this race tell us? Not much really. The real contest will be which side can spin the results to help shape the narrative for the coming months, although I think that die is already cast. Both sides will have to shout awfully loud to drown out the constant din of Iraq.