While national press watches the Presidential primaries in Wisconsin today, Central Valley voters are beigna sked to decide how to fill the seat vacated by Herny Perea last year when he left the post to work for the pharmecuecal industy.
Squaring off are Democrats Joaquin Arambula and Tim Miller and Republican Clint Olivier. A few notes ont he race:
The Contenders
Clint Olivier is a Republican and Councilmember in the city of Fresno.
Ted Miller is a Democrat and an Engineer whose website (a sites.google address o_O ) pushes "Water * Water * Water".
Dr. Joaquin Arambula, also a Democrat and an Emergency room physician who is the son of former legislator Juan Arambula, who represented a similar District prior to redisrticting.
Valley Public Radio did a 20 minute piece with candidate interviews here.
The District
The District is wholly contained within Fresno County and includes the City of Fresno as well as western areas of the county.
What to Watch For
Well, turnout, obviously. A Valley Public Radio station noted that, " As of Monday morning, about 20,000 absentee ballots have been submitted. That’s roughly 11 percent of all registered voters, but total turnout is likely to be more in the 20%-to-30% range says Paul Mitchell the vice president of Political Data." That seems a high for a special election, though numerous indepndent efforts are reputed to have spent upwards of a million dollars in Get Out the Vote Activity. That's because this seat is crucial to the legislative Democrats 2/3 super majority.
The other big question is whther any of these candidates can cross the 50% threshold and prevent a runoff. If not, we'll get a do-over in June.