Thanks to California’s infamously gerrymandered legislative districts the vast majority of seats are “pre-ordained” to be either Republican or Democrat.  Only in a few districts is the registration close enough that a seat is “in play” in the general election.  One of those is State Senate District 16 in the Central Valley.

This seat is currently occupied by term-limited Democrat Dean Florez, who has mentored Democrat Kern County Supervisor Michael Rubio (pictured, right) to succeed him.   The Democrat “machine” in the southern part of the valley is so lock-step behind Rubio that he had no primary opponent whatsoever.

On the Republican side of the ballot, rancher and realtor Tim Theisen (pictured, left) won a narrow primary victory on June 8th and promises to be a strong candidate in the fall.  Theisen, a popular conservative with long roots in the district, and his primary opponent together totaled up votes very close to what Rubio achieved (the delta was less than a couple thousand votes).

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.