On June 8, the voters of California chose their party nominees for this November’s statewide and national elections. According to official and unofficial tallies, certain candidates absolutely cleaned up at the polls.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, Meg Whitman was one of those individuals. For governor, California Republicans overwhelmingly favored Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, giving her over 64% of the vote. Shortly after her win, Whitman wasted no time responding to Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown, who is already challenging Whitman to debates and claiming she is a woman without a plan for the state.
Whitman took some heat for her response that Brown had “failed at every political job he's ever had,” as the Mercury News reports. Before the results of the primary, Whitman’s stiffest competition had been coming from California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. In November, Whitman will face Brown, and Californians will get to decide if the typically-blue state will once more elect a Democratic governor or stick with a GOP member.
For Lieutenant Governor, current Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado prevailed against his rivals, and will run as the GOP candidate. Maldonado, the 47th Lt. Gov. of California, faced some hemming and hawing before being officially installed in his current post, which he has held since April 27. Maldonado will run against Democratic nominee and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in November (who received 54.7% of the vote in his contest).
There is plenty of estrogen in this year’s crop of California GOP nominees. For Senate, Carly Fiorina will be the GOP nominee to run against longtime Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. Fiorina is the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and, like Whitman, was a former member of the McCain campaign in 2008. If she beats Boxer, this will be the first major political position Fiorina has held, though she does bring a significant amount of business experience to the table.
In other results, Debra Bowen will again be the Democratic nominee to run for Secretary of State, while Damon Dunn will have the GOP nomination. Mattie Fein received the GOP nomination for the 36th district, receiving 50.3% of the vote, and young Republican Brian Gutierrez received 100% of the 7,295 votes for the Republican nomination to the seat representing State Assembly District 57.
John Dennis, a Ron Paul Republican, won the 8th district Republican primary and will be facing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in November.