Today, termed-out Republican Assembly Guy Houston (pictured to the right), who represents an east Bay Area legislative district, announced plans that he is running to unseat incumbent Republican Supervisor Mary Piepho.  This, of course, is bad news for Piepho (who had not been making any sounds about retirement) and very good news for former Board of Equalization Member Dean Andal.

Piepho, from what I understand though FR sources, is not too popular amongst the GOP activist and donor communities in Contra Costa County, and may have big troubles fending off a strong challenge from the charismatic Houston.  That said, the power of incumbency is strong, and particular for County Supervisors who typically have mastered the art of performing "cashectomies" on the large group of people who care a lot about the decions made by county government.

Of course, this leaves the primary field in the 11th Congressional District Republican primary wide open for Dean Andal (pictured, left), who now becomes the presumptive GOP nominee to take on Democrat Jerry McNerney next November.  This is the seat that GOPer Richard Pombo lost last year, and it shows up on everyone’s ranking of the top 10 most competitive House races for 2008.

Andal has been extremely strong out the gate in both his community support, as well as his impressive fundraising prowess.  He will be a very strong contender.

As for Houston’s matchup against his former staffer, we’ll see how that develops.  One thing is for sure, she’s had better days…

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.