California’s Meh Primary

SacBee editorial:

Speaking of embarrassing, 287,590 Californians voted on election day for Sen. Leland Yee for secretary of state, the chief elections officer, even though he faces federal corruption charges including allegations of gun-running.

Maybe Yee’s voters were confused. Perhaps they were using their votes as a prank. Whatever.

Yee won’t make it into the runoff. But he led Dan Schnur, a USC teacher and former political operative, and Derek Cressman, former head of California Common Cause. Both ran on political reform platforms, not that many of us noticed.

Schnur ran as an independent, which shows that even though more than 20 percent of Californians decline to state a party preference, a candidate’s party affiliation counts. His defeat will be a cautionary tale for future candidates who don’t state a party preference.

California’s new top-two primary system, combined with low turnout, complicated matters for insiders and party leaders. They hate the jungle primary and seek to undermine it because they have a harder time scripting the outcome.

Share this: