Assembly District 5 (R-Niello, open 2010) is a largely suburban Sacramento seat, and was previously represented by former Republican Leader, now State Senator, Dave Cox. There is lots of chatter amongst the political class about AD5, and whether recent registration trends have moved the seat from ‘Safe Republican’ to ‘Swing’.

Let’s start with the numbers.  In 2004 the registration by party was 44.44% Republican, 37.5% Democrat, 13.61% Decline to State. In 2009 the numbers are 38.77% Republican, 37.90% Democrat, and 19.03% Decline to State. Thus, the seat is nearing a ‘push’ on partisan registration. However, I think it’s useful to look a little past of the top of the line numbers. Virtually all of the movement occurred during the 2007-2008 cycle (2 Democrat points up in this period, 2 Decline to State points up, and 3.5 points of GOP slippage). It could be argued – and I think Republicans hope – that this was largely the result of the national surge of Obamism, and the lack of a funded McCain campaign in California, and that new registration results should on the natural favor Republicans if they can re-instate their registration programs.

Candidate numbers were interesting. In this district local partisan GOP candidates routinely surpass top of the ticket Republican candidates – in either or both percentages and raw numbers. In 2002 Assemblyman Dave Cox got 65.2% or 79,527 voters vs. Gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon’s 55.10% or 69,506 votes. In 2004 Assembly candidate Roger Niello got 60.3% or 104,895 votes vs. President George W. Bush’s 51.1% or 108,124 votes. In 2008 Assemblyman Niello got 54.30% or 101,888 voters vs. Presidential candidate John McCain’s 46.9% or 99,268 voters. This type of voting could be indicative of a number of possibilities: (1) local candidates are winning swing voters, national candidates are not (2) local candidates have somehow managed to break the partisan association with the top of the ticket, or even (3) voters in the district don’t particularly like the national Republican Party, but are more comfortable with local Republican candidates. In a few minutes of thinking, I’m sure the readers can come up with their perfectly local theories as well.

One statistic that I’m sure didn’t escape readers is the overall lowering of the Republican Assembly candidate’s numbers each cycle, ending in 2008 with Niello at 54.30%. While this slide certainly points out a trend of some sort, again the trend may not be as pronounced as the numbers would have us believe. In the worst electoral year for Republicans since Watergate – maybe a worse year in California actually than 1974 – Obama carried the district with 51%, while the Assembly match up was Niello (R) 54.30%, Leahy (D) 38.10%, and Martinez (PF) 7.6%. Assume that the Martinez votes go to Leahy and we have 45.70% Leahy. That sounds pretty bad for Republicans in 2010 until you sit back for a minute and realize that 2010 was a once in a generation election and probably the high water mark for Democrats in every election in the country. If the Democrat in a given race didn’t win last time, he is unlikely to win next time bar some unforeseen and dramatic change.

So what do I think, based on the numbers? I think that Republican registration will probably move a point or more between now and the election, and that Democrat registration numbers will be reduced as purges are conducted. The final gap in registration around election day could be as low as one point, as high as three points, favoring the Republican. Very few seats with those types of registration numbers are held, or have been held, by Democrats. I think that the natural GOP victory in a non-tidal wave election year in the seat should be in the mid-high 50’s. That’s pretty safe, but could be better with some work.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.