I was recently talking to seasoned Orange County political consultant Matt Holder, and he shared with me a theory concerning the recent, narrow loss of Diane Harkey to Assemblyman Tom Harman in the special election in the 35th State Senate election.
Harkey’s consultant, Scott Hart, had pointed out that Tom Harman had seen an unusually high margin of victory from asian foreign-language voters in the district — primarily Vietnamese voters — by a a very dramatic margin.
Holder’s theory is this — Harkey was depriving of an opportunity to purchase an official ballot statement for the voter guide produced and distributed by the Registrar of Voters because she was spending too much of her personal money (dumb law). Harman did have a statement, however, and it was sent to these households translated into the language of choice preferred by each voter.
Did that make the difference? It was a factor said well-respected pollster Adam Probolsky (who writes for this site). Probolsky suggested as well not to underestimate the impact of Harman’s ballot title — and that his being an elected State Legislature would have had a large impact on these voters.
Food for thought.
May 11th, 2006 at 12:00 am
One of the problems of losing by a whisker is that one can second guess almost every decision made during the entire campaign and come to the conclusion that if it had been done differently, the candidate might have won the election.
Fortunately whenever I ran for public office, I lost by such a huge margin that such self-flagellation was unnecessary.
May 12th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Holder’s theory is correct to a certain extent but with Harkey having such little name ID it made receiving a sample ballot statement impossible. Current law allows candidates a choice to spend no more than a certain figure and get the statement, or choose to have no spending limitations and eliminate your chances of having a sample ballot statement. I think Gilliard, Hart and Co. made the correct decision by not having the statement. Harkey made a VERY impressive mark on this race. Someone with such little name recognition running against a current Assembly Member only to lose by 230 votes!!! This small margin goes to show what can be accomplished with hard work and determination.
I think the true question to ask is: How much did Coronado Communications do to go after the DTS and Independent voters?
June 6th should have several State Senate and AD races that will show us if these Sample Ballot theories are correct. I know Bob Huff can attribute his March 2004 victory to his Ballot Statement.