Every cycle there is a race or two that confounds the “experts”. Last week in Sacramento I was telling people to watch the South Bay part of Los Angeles for such a race. In particular I would tell anyone that would listen to look at the 53rd Assembly District.
The 53rd assembly District is made of many of the Beach Cities including El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Lomita, Manhattan Beach, Marina del Rey, Redondo Beach, and Torrance. The seat is an open seat with term limits forcing out Assemblyman Ted Lieu.
The Democratic nominee after a bruising primary is trial attorney association fundraiser Betsy Butler. The GOP nominee is radar systems engineer and South Bay Tea Party leader Nathan Mintz. Mintz has raised over a hundred grand and secured endorsements of former Mayor Richard Riordan, Supervisor Don Knabe and the Mayors of several cities in the District. He has a good ground operation well.
With all that comes some polling from Stephen Kinney and Public Opinion Strategies.
The survey was conducted of 300 likely voters in the 53rd Assembly District
from October 16th through October 17th, 2010. The margin of error of this survey is a plus or minus 5.66%
Some of the highlights of their findings were:
“Voters in the California 53rd Assembly District are extremely negative about the direction the state is headed (16% Right Direction and 71% Wrong Track). Negative intensity of 54% with such a high ratio of negative (54%) to positive (3%) intensity means these voters, especially the Republicans, are VERY angry, and their mood will not be positive anytime soon.
80% of the district’s likely voters for the November General Election say they will definitely be voting. This translates to a likely turnout of around 48%.
However, less than half (47%) of the district’s likely voters for the November General Election say they are “very interested in November’s elections.” Republicans are FAR more interested in the November Elections (61%) than Democrats (40%) and Independents (38%) just as they believe much stronger that the state is headed on the “wrong track.” If these numbers hold, close races like this one in the 53rd District SHOULD break towards the Republicans in the fall.
The 53rd Assembly District definitely leans to the Democratic side on the generic ballot (37% Republican and 42% Democratic), but this margin is less than half of the registration margin in the district (33% Republican and 44% Democratic), the margin of Democratic Voters over Republican voters used for this survey. Further, those most likely to vote are evenly divided (41%/41%), and those most interested in this year’s election give the Republicans a huge edge (50%/32%). This could be the perfect year for Republicans to retake this seat.
Both Nathan Mintz (38%) and Betsy Butler (48%) have been heard of by less than half of the voters in the 53rd District at this point. Further, only 20% have an opinion of Mintz (12% Favorable and 8% Unfavorable), and only 30% have an opinion of Butler (21%/9%). These numbers leave A LOT of room for the candidates to define themselves and each other over the final weeks of the campaign.
In a head-to-head matchup, Betsy Butler has a small 4% popular lead over Nathan Mintz (36%/32%), but Mintz actually has more definite support (21%/19%). As the points which follow will show you, Mintz is in a pretty strong position with those voters who are most interested in this election being quite a bit more supportive of him. However, Butler cannot be ruled out in a district like this, especially if the Democratic Voters become more motivated as Election Day draws closer.
We already saw earlier how much more interested the Republicans are in this election (61%) than the Democrats (40%) and Independents (38%), and every extra Republican who shows up will be a big benefit to Mintz who leads 69% to 5% with Republicans.”
My take is that with some resources Mintz has a shot at the 53rd if the “wave” hits California’s shores.
On a side note look at the numbers of Republicans interested in the elections versus Democrats.
What does that mean in the 54th Assembly District? There the unopposed Democratic Incumbent Bonnie Lowenthal received 1021 more votes than the unopposed GOP candidate Martha Flores-Gibson the June primaries.