Candidates campaign right down to the wire
Bay Area: Voters turn out in strong numbers to cast their ballots early
Bay Area and statewide candidates were getting one last word in before Tuesday’s midterm elections, amid indications that record numbers of voters were already casting ballots.
Both candidates for governor, Republican John Cox and Democrat Gavin Newsom, came to the Bay Area for their last-minute appeals.
Cox rode his campaign bus to a Berkeley body shop to deliver his message that soaring housing prices are a disaster for California workers. Some workers at Platinum Auto Body and Collision on San Pablo Avenue said they drive from the Central Valley because that’s where they can pay for a place to live.
Genevie Cushman, the shop’s office manager, carpools in from Manteca (San Joaquin County), a drive that takes about two hours “on a good day.” “I can’t afford to live here,” she said. Cox promised to call a special session of the Legislature as soon as he takes office to find ways to cut the costs of housing construction in the state.
Newsom, a heavy favorite in the race, was more concerned with pushing to elect Democrats across
the state, including to Republican congressional seats his party needs to take back control of the House.
After spending the weekend in Southern California campaigning for House Democratic hopefuls with California Sen. Kamala Harris, Newsom spent Monday afternoon in Modesto, where Democrat Josh Harder is challenging Republican Rep. Jeff Denham. He finished his day in San Francisco at a getout-the-vote rally with Harris and Gov. Jerry Brown.
“With all due respect to all the work we’ve done to get this far, let’s not run the 90-yard dash,” Newsom said to 200 supporters at the Chapel, a music club in San Francisco’s Mission District. “Let’s close this thing out.”
Voters weren’t waiting until Tuesday to cast ballots.
The basement of San Francisco’s City Hall was jammed Monday with voters filling out ballots outside the Department of Elections and along both sides of long hallways. Among the races they were deciding: five seats on the Board of Supervisors and Proposition C, a ballot measure that would tax companies to raise $300 million a year for programs to fight homelessness.
A frazzled-looking city worker answering the phone said there were 30 voice mails left overnight asking how to vote, and the phone just kept ringing.
John Arntz, the city elections director, said that as of Monday morning, 113,000 mail-in ballots had arrived at City Hall, 13 percent more than officials had projected. He said 1,100 people voted at City Hall on Sunday, and he expected another 1,300 on Monday. As many as 3,000 voters could come to City Hall on election day.
“People know City Hall as a place to vote,” Arntz said. “It’s a visual people catch on to.”
He said he wouldn’t be surprised if the city turnout is the highest for any midterm election since 1974, which is as far back as his department’s computer records go.
Lawrence Jurado, a 68-yearold native of San Francisco, said he doesn’t think he’s ever missed an election and said people who don’t cast a ballot don’t have a right to complain if they don’t like the results. He lives in the Mission and said he’s been talking to his Spanishspeaking friends and neighbors about the importance of voting.
“I’m not fluent-fluent, but I know how to say, ‘Go and vote,’ ” he said.
Gasby Jajeh, 21, was working for the Department of Elections, showing people where to vote. She said she was pleased to see so many people.
“Maybe because of what’s happening in the world,” she said. “Maybe it’s the cool thing to do.”
In the East Bay, there are plenty of local races to bring out the voters.
In the race to represent Assembly District 15, East Bay voters will choose between a progressive Richmond City Council member backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and a first-time candidate who worked in the Obama White House and led Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign operation in California.
Richmond Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles said the contest is about getting “dirty, big money” out of politics and noted that if she lost, the Bay Area would no longer have a black representative in the Legislature. Her opponent, Buffy Wicks, said she has a “bold, progressive agenda” but wouldn’t hesitate to work across the aisle to get legislation passed.
Oakland voters will decide whether to re-elect Mayor Libby Schaaf or embrace one of nine challengers, none of whom has ever held elected office. Schaaf ’s opponents have positioned themselves to her left and criticized the mayor for the city’s homeless crisis and escalating housing prices.
If Schaaf wins the rankedchoice election, she will be the first Oakland mayor to gain a second term since Jerry Brown did so 16 years ago.
There are three seats up for
grabs on the Oakland City Council. All three races are thought to be close.
“People are very engaged and very focused on these City Council races in a way you usually don’t see in Oakland,” said Jim Ross, an Oakland political consultant.
Despite the growing popularity of mailed ballots, polling places across the state are going to be busy Tuesday.
In the June primary, twothirds of the vote came from mailed ballots. But as of Friday, only about 3.8 million of such ballots had been returned, said Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., which collects and analyzes voting information for political campaigns. That’s about 30 percent of the 12.8 million mail ballots that were sent to California voters. In the June primary, 4.8 million mail ballots were cast.
The numbers so far indicate that millions of mail ballots will be arriving after election day. As long as they’re postmarked by Tuesday and arrive by Friday, they’ll be counted. Those latearriving ballots typically take days or even weeks to tabulate.
“There could be 2 million to 3 million votes left to be counted after election day,” Mitchell said. “It’s going to be a long process to determine who won in tightly contested races.”