The Zink/Pavley Rumble in the 27th

The Fran Pavley/Todd Zink Race for California's 27th Senate District hasn't gotten as much attention locally as Headington/Wilk or McKeon/Rogers, but as a resident of the 27th, let me tell you, this is a hot race.

I think the Notes from Newhall HQ, orbiting high above Lyons Avenue, has received a Pavley & Zink mailer (sometimes two of each) every day for almost the last ten days, more, probably, than every other local race combined. And they're not just candidate mailers either; big California PACs are getting involved and filling my mailbox with high-gloss, high-dollar hit pieces.

I've also received what seemed link a poll call, which tested various lines of attack against Pavley & Zink to see if it changed my opinion of either candidate. And I've received at least two calls from Zink volunteers asking if they can count on my vote for Todd Zink (each time I shut them down cold saying I was a Pavley voter...the quickest way to get off the phone).

Why so much firepower focused on this race?

KPCC explains the importance:

Pavley raised $1.2 million for her campaign between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30. The Zink campaign raised $950,000. The race is an important one for both parties because the Democrats are two seats away from a super-majority in the state Senate – something that hasn’t happened since the 1960s.

The new 27th District stretches from Malibu on the coast, to Thousand Oaks, the majority of the San Fernando Valley & Simi Valleys and all the way up to the western and southern SCV, including much of Newhall, Stevenson Ranch, and classic Valencia. It'd be interesting to see the population density of this section of the SCV vs Simi & San Fernando Valley. Is it smart to put so many resources on Santa Clarita, a relatively small part of the District, in other words?

The SacBee, in its analsys of the District says its 40% Dem and 34% Republican. But Pavley -an incumbent remember- isn't having as easy a run of it as she hoped.

I'm told a high-dollar GOP fundraising event will be held for Zink sometime this week at the Valencia Country Club. A bourbon and cigars type event, you know, real Republican stuff.

I'm sure there are high-dollar Dem fundraisers for Pavley too, but they'll probably be in Malibu with wine and cheese, else I'd go.

This feels like the same race as the one in 2008 between Hannah Beth Jackson (coastal lib) and Tony Strickland (interior conservative). Strickland won that by the narrowest of margins, largely on the strength of his performance in the tiny sliver of Stevenson Ranch that made up the easternmost boundary of the 19th Senate District.

Will we see a similar outcome in 2012?



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