Judy Chu, Betty Yee, and Michele Park Steele are all on the way to seats on the State Board of Equalization.  Mike Eng, Fiona Ma, and Mary Chung-Hayashi are on their way to the State Assembly, and Assemblymember Leland Yee is moving up to the State Senate.  However, the night was not without disappointment , Warren Furutani lost his bid to the State Assembly, and George Nakano will not be going to the State Senate.

A lesson learned from this election is that in a low turn-out primary election, the endorsement of the California Democratic Party (CDP) matters.  Phil Angelides, who was losing State Controller Steve Westly and his e-bay fortune before the Democratic convention last month, won because of the Democratic Party faithful who show up to vote in the primary.

While John Chiang did not win the endorsement of the CDP (neither Chiang nor Dunn won the official party endorsement) he did win a great majority of support from CDP regional directors and officers and Democratic clubs and organizations throughout the state.  John was successful in building great grassroots support among party activists because of his many years as a staffer and elected official. 

Furthermore, the CDP endorsed Judy Chu, Betty Yee, Fiona Ma, and Mike Eng, while George Nakano? opponent Jenny Oropeza won the Party? endorsement and the CDP endorse no candidate in the 55 th Assembly District which featured Warren Furutani against Laura Richardson.

As we look towards the higher turnout November General Election, the question for Angelides and Chiang is can they go beyond the Party faithful and appeal to independent and decline to state and the more moderate and independent Democratic general election voters.  Chiang has a real opportunity to appeal to the large APA decline-to-state, and potentially APA Republicans who would be interested in seeing an APA in statewide office.