Commentary: A fight for power in Sacramento tests boundaries of campaign finance law
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The California Dungeness Crab harvest.
This year is important because it will bring the first presidential primary for California’s presidential run that won’t take place in November. Instead, this election will take place in April. It’s a big deal.
The reason why the presidential preference contest will take place in April is that it is an election year, and one that would be an unusual proposition for most of the United States. It would have been impossible for either of the GOP candidates to have won this election without winning the state, as Republicans have just won the governorship of California in a special election.
In the past, Presidential primaries in California have not taken place in April in years when both California’s Republican and Democratic governorships changed hands. However, Gov. Jerry Brown has said he would like to bring this election to Sacramento early next year, as he tries to keep the state in the hands of the Democratic governor. He’s not done. He wants to hold the election in mid-April, or earlier if he can, to give the Democratic governor time to get prepared.
The unusual circumstances of this election — the gubernatorial loss by the Democrat and the presidential candidacy by the Republican — mean the contest will be decided in part on who can collect the largest number of California’s electoral votes, as well as how many votes each candidate can count by picking up as many as possible on the ground.
The California state law that the presidential preference votes will be counted is similar to the one implemented here about two years ago, when California held its first presidential preference vote. The election, held at the same time as the state’s presidential vote in the same year, produced a close contest for the Republican presidential preference, but the Democratic victory was bigger and more convincing.
This time, there’ll be a difference.
This election will take place four days after the state’s presidential vote. One of the Republican candidates will try to get California’s electoral votes by winning the California race, and another Republican candidate will make the same effort to get the Electoral College votes by winning the presidency.
The same thing happened in 2010, when the presidential vote was held during the same month
