Disclaimer: The views below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MCBA and its members.

Four Marin Cities Have City Council Elections This November

Some local cities and counties have long had their elections for local nonpartisan offices in even-numbered years, along with the major state and national partisan offices. Others, like Marin, have traditionally held most of them in odd-numbered years, so as not to compete with those statewide races for volunteers’ time, donations, and most importantly, voter attention.

But a new law passed a few years ago moved all local elections to even-numbered years if odd-numbered-year voter turnout lagged too far behind. Although Marin’s local elections had a better than average turnout in odd-numbered years, our national elections—especially presidential elections—have been first or second in voter turnout in the state for the last three cycles, so we were among those forced to move our local elections to even-numbered years.

This required either extending or shortening the office-holders’ terms by one year; most lengthened them to save on the cost of an additional election, and most also kept them in the same month they always had been. The school districts and special districts (about 45 total) moved a year or two ago, but the cities and towns were given a little extra time, and the last four will hold their last odd-numbered-year elections this November—the last time regularly scheduled elections will be held in Marin in odd-numbered years.

The candidate filing period began in mid-July and runs through August 9th (or the 14th if at least one incumbent does not file) at the city halls of Novato, Larkspur, San Anselmo, and Fairfax, although typically candidates too often wait until the last week — especially new candidates who decide to run (or are talked into it) at the relative last minute. And incumbents and new candidates alike usually file their papers during the last week, even if they “pulled” them a week or two earlier, so they have until the latest possible date to work on their extremely important ballot statement of 200 words, which is due when they file.

NOVATO is considered the big one of the four, largely because of population, but also because it will be having district elections for the first time, thanks to Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman, who’s been going through the state’s largest cities, sending them letters telling them they have 45 days to pass a resolution to switch from at-large to district elections, and it will only cost them $30,000 (to pay for his research behind his letter). But if they don’t agree to switch immediately, then he’ll file suit against them pursuant to a recent revision of the California Civil Rights Act, and then the bill would more likely be in the millions (and they’d lose, as the few cities that have challenged him have). (San Rafael went through this process a year ago, but its next election isn’t until next year.)

Novato City Council incumbent (and current Mayor) Eric Lucan is running for re-election, and I’ve not yet heard of any potential challengers to him in his first-ever district election. A second incumbent, Josh Fryday, just announced a month or so ago that he just last month got a new job in Sacramento in Governor Newsom’s administration, preventing him from running for re-election, which he otherwise would have done, so there’s an open seat in that district. The third incumbent, the controversial Pam Drew (who is running for a second term, and who is aligned with the also controversial Pat Eklund, a long-serving councilwoman), will almost certainly draw at least one challenger, but the planning commissioner who’d been planning on running against her for nearly a year now has found himself in a district that is not the same one as Pam Drew’s.

FAIRFAX, SAN ANSELMO, AND LARKSPUR will similarly have two or three seats each up for election, and usually, but not always, the incumbents run for re-election. If there are no challengers, or the number of new candidates equals or is less than the number of incumbents stepping down (“true vacancies”), the race will not appear on the ballot, and that happens in at least one or two cases each cycle.

The Latest News on the Top Five 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates.

While there have been ever-so-slight stirrings of another Republican candidate (the disappearing Mark Sanford for President, anyone?), in addition to former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld (who was the Libertarian candidate for Vice President in 2016), all the action remains on the Democratic side, and so I bring you the latest on the top candidates. In the two months since my last column (of several) on this topic, a few more candidates have jumped in (including Joe Sestak and Tom Steyer), and one has dropped out already (Eric Swalwell). Most of the now 25 or so candidates have no realistic chance, although most of them qualified for the June and July debates by virtue of registering at least 1% in four qualified polls, and having at least 65,000 unique donors.

For the next debate, in September, the qualifying poll numbers and number of donors needed to qualify doubles to 2% and 130,000, and probably about half the candidates will fail to qualify, and will likely drop out as result (or maybe even before they fail to qualify). A few laggards could catch fire and at least make it to the September debate, but the polling for the top few candidates has remained pretty stable for nearly a couple months now, and it’s becoming less and less likely that a strong new candidate will join the field, or that an existing one will suddenly rise to challenge the top five.

Pete Buttigieg (#5)

Mayor Pete has made the biggest jump, from less than 1% to about 5%, where’s he’s been holding relatively steady for nearly two months now. That’s pretty remarkable for someone so young (late 30s), and “only” the mayor of a medium-sized city (South Bend, Indiana), but he’s still young, and still only a mayor, and no one’s ever gone directly from being a mayor to the presidency. He’s also gay (and married), which adds a wrinkle, and makes him more appealing to some, but obviously less appealing to others, although ideally it should be irrelevant. Interestingly, a recent Gallup poll found youth more likely to be held against him than being gay: 76% of Americans said they would vote for a gay candidate for President versus only 71% for someone under 40.

Most importantly, he has a sort of dream resume (Rhodes Scholar, Afghanistan vet), and is so refreshingly direct and articulate, it makes him charismatic, which accounts from his rise from nowhere to around 5%. But just because he rose quickly from relative obscurity to 5% earlier this year doesn’t mean he can double or triple that number to compete with the four candidates far ahead of him in the polls, even if he did raise a little bit more money than the other four in the second quarter ($25M, as opposed to $3 to 8M less than that for the others).

Kamala Harris (#4)

I’ve always liked Kamala, and introduced her at a fundraiser when she first ran for Attorney General, and I was impressed by her June debate and sent her a little money. But while she, too, is extremely charismatic, and even has that rare presence that enables me to see her as president, she’s still a new senator only in her third year and unknown to the vast majority of people outside California before this presidential run. Although Barack Obama was in that same situation, his main opponent was always Hillary Clinton, whom many Democrats (and most Republicans) disliked.

Her June debate “attack” on Joe Biden caused her to rise from about 7% to about 12% in the polls, a pretty big leap, but she’s stayed there about a month now, and is still a ways behind the top three (although she’s now neck-and-neck with leader Joe Biden in California). Unless she rises considerably more in the coming months, she may not be in a position to land in the top two or three in Iowa and/or New Hampshire next February, which would hurt her, possibly making her unable to win California after all. Even if she did, she would probably not be the overall frontrunner. Although she talks like a progressive, and takes progressive positions, some don’t trust her because she’s been a career prosecutor. Her recent health care plan, which she calls Medicare for All, some say is really not, with a longer transition period into it, and perhaps relying on health insurance companies to do what they are supposed to do, which I think is a bad bet.

Bernie Sanders (#3)

I’ve always liked Bernie, supported him last time, and even gave him a little money a few months ago, but it’s possible he’s being eclipsed by Elizabeth Warren (#2), if he hasn’t already been. I figured he’d be stronger than ever this year, picking up where he left off last time (again, against only Hillary Clinton). In fact, he does have a large fundraising base, which provided more donations than to any other candidate last quarter overall, although not quite as much money as others in the second quarter of this year.

But at the June debate, I thought he looked grumpy and angry (which some people thought he did in his last run, but not me), although I think he presented better in the recent July debate. He still has a lot going for him, and still usually says just the right thing, in the right way (orally and in writing), and he looks and can certainly handle the role of the presidency. But if both he and Warren split the left edge of the electorate, both could lose badly to Biden (still #1), so if Warren has indeed eclipsed Sanders, and it stays that way, he really ought to be thinking about dropping out at some point and endorsing Warren, in order to give their shared agenda a better chance to beat Biden.

Elizabeth Warren (#2)

I’ve always liked Elizabeth as well (and donated a little to her as well after her strong June debate appearance), and participated in a committee to try and draft her to run for president four years ago. But she was then a pretty-new senator, and she figured she needed more time there, and eventually declined to run, paving the way for Bernie Sanders’ run.

This time, I was afraid she wouldn’t be as strong as Bernie, and while most of the top candidates have forsworn PAC, lobbyist, and other special-interest donations, I figured Warren wouldn’t have enough money because she doesn’t even have big-donor fundraisers, a political staple at almost all levels, especially presidential races. But she’s raised nearly the same amount as the other top five, and continues to put forth bold, thoughtful, and appealing (to progressives) positions on a wide variety of topics.

She has risen from #4 to #2 in many or most polls in the past couple months, and her “I have plan for that” has even become a lovingly-mocked meme. In the recent debate, she may have had the best line: “For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would go to all the trouble of running for president if all they’re going to do is say what we can’t do and they won’t fight for.” But while it looked recently like she might pass Joe Biden and become the frontrunner, Biden reversed his slightly dropping poll numbers (and Warren stopped rising), and he currently remains #1 by a considerable margin.

Joe Biden (#1)

Although Biden jumped in a month or two later than most of the other top candidates, that doesn’t seem to matter now, and he’s been leading the other candidates by about 10 to 20% in most polls. All reasonably informed voters have known about Biden for decades, even before he became Obama’s VP 11 years ago, and while I respect his long service as a Senator (and VP), he’s not progressive enough for progressives like me, and I think he’s made too many mistakes in the past, and has too much baggage, to be anything other than a fragile frontrunner this time.

His two known instances of plagiarism (one in college, one in the Senate), his harsh treatment of Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings over a quarter century ago, and other positions he’s taken two or three decades ago which may have seemed fine at the time, but are now seen as inappropriate (e.g., opposing busing students to integrate schools) are only a few examples of his baggage. There are more, along with his penchant for taking corporate money (he did represent Delaware, the HQ of most corporations, for nearly 40 years). In the June debate, he seemed a little confused at times, not a good look for someone approaching his late 70s (he’s a year younger than Sanders), when so many want someone younger, and/or a woman, and/or a person of color, and/or someone more progressive.

But he’s maintained his rather large lead (give or take a slight drop after the June debate, which he now seems to have recovered from), which makes him still the candidate to beat. If Warren’s and Sanders’ polling numbers were combined (for Warren, as now looks more likely, or for Sanders, as I would have guessed a couple months ago), Biden can be overtaken, but I don’t see either Sanders or Warren dropping out any time soon.

The longer Biden remains the leader by a comfortable margin, the more the aura of inevitability surrounds him, making it more and more likely that he will remain the frontrunner, barring a major gaffe (which he’s certainly capable of). Many people don’t distinguish the candidates so much on their positions, or even whether they’re progressive or moderate, but on who’s most likely to beat Trump. Currently that’s Biden, by a considerable margin, but as I said in my last article two months ago, it may be a tough decision for many Democrats to go for Biden, with polls showing him beating Trump by the widest margin, instead of Warren or Sanders or Harris, who polls show also beating Trump, but by narrower margins, even if they like the others’ positions more.

It’s said that a week is a lifetime in politics, so things can (and often do) change quickly. Again, some presidential races in recent decades have had candidates rise out of nowhere to be the frontrunner, sometimes very quickly, although they usually fall back to earth quickly as well. And don’t forget that our last three Democratic presidents—Carter, Clinton, and Obama—all started out as underdogs and eventually captured the nomination and the presidency.

But with a field this big, full of candidates this good, the likelihood of any of them, much less several of them, falling precipitously and allowing someone else to be the frontrunner, seems slim to me at this point. Three and a half years ago, I predicted Trump would win the Republican nomination, by virtue of his having such a large lead in the polls for so many months (from 20 to 30 to 40% in the polls, all of which were much more than whoever was #2) that no one could catch him, and the same may well happen with Biden.