The Republican Party maintained its strength in the state legislature in yesterday’s election, with Sam Blakeslee defeating Democrat John Laird for the District 15 Senate seat held by Abel Maldonado. Democrats had counted on a Laird victory bringing them one seat short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass budget legislation. Although Democrats are a majority in the district, accounting for 41 percent of registered voters, the seat has been held by the minority Republicans since 1996. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Blakeslee received 48.8 percent of the vote, while Laird’s received 44.1 percent. Libertarian candidate Mark Hinkle of Morgan Hill won 2 percent, while independent Jim Fitzgerald of Nipomo won 5.1 percent.
Blakeslee, who received the endorsement of gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, campaigned on a platform of not raising taxes to deal with the state’s $19 billion budget deficit. He reiterated this in his victory speech, saying, “My campaign talked about the need for balancing the budget without tax increase after tax increase.”
Blakeslee won the overwhelming majority of votes in his home district of San Luis Obispo and in Santa Barbara County, while Laird was the clear winner in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. In Santa Clara County, which has the largest block of voters in the district after San Luis Obispo, there was just a 1 percent spread between the two candidates. Read more at ABC 7 and the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
