Angelides Takes Primary
Treasurer Phil Angelides (D) will face Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) in November's general election, after they won their respective primary elections on Tuesday, the Oakland Tribune reports. Angelides defeated Controller Steve Westly for the Democratic nomination (Geissinger, Oakland Tribune, 6/7).
Although Westly and Angelides had similar positions on a number of issues, they differed on health care and tax policies. Angelides has said he supports legislation to create a single-payer, state-run health system, while Westly has said he supports universal health care but would take incremental steps to adopt such a system (California Healthline, 6/5).
With 98% of precincts reporting, Angelides received 47.7% of the vote, and Westly received 43.5%. Schwarzenegger faced little opposition and received about 90% of the Republican vote (Yamamura, Sacramento Bee, 6/7).
According to the Los Angeles Times, a "bitter campaign seemed to hurt" both Westly and Angelides, as a Times exit poll found that voters expressed "no great enthusiasm" for either candidate (Finnegan/Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 6/7).
In other races on Tuesday, early returns found that:
- Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante appeared to be winning the Democratic nomination for insurance commissioner. Bustamante would face off against Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Poizner in the fall (Benson, Sacramento Bee, 6/7);
- Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown won the Democratic primary for attorney general. Brown will face Sen. Charles Poochigan (R-Fresno) in November (Los Angeles Times, 6/7).
- Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi was leading the race, with 90% of precincts reporting, for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor over Sen. Jackie Speier (San Mateo) and Sen. Liz Figueroa (Fremont). The winner will face Republican nominee Tom McClintock, a state senator representing Thousand Oaks (Benson, Sacramento Bee, 6/7).
Several other newspapers also covered the primary election:
- "Brown, Bustamante Earn Victories in Democratic Primaries" (Young, Bakersfield Californian, 6/6).
- "Angelides Beats Westly in Race To Challenge Schwarzenegger" (Kurtzman, AP/Riverside Press-Enterprise, 6/7).
- "Angelides Edges Past Westly" (Marelius/Ainsworth, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/7).
- "Angelides Claims Victory" (Marinucci et al., San Francisco Chronicle, 6/7).
- "Angelides Declares a Win; Reed-Chavez in SJ Mayoral Runoff" (Corcoran/McPherson, San Jose Mercury News, 6/7).