Clinton, Carbajal, Hartmann, and Dems Sweep County
But Trump Victory Overwhelms All
For Santa Barbara Democrats, Tuesday night’s election results proved to be an excruciatingly mixed message. The area candidates for whom the party “machine” revved its engines won big and won convincingly.
County Supervisor Salud Carbajal — heir apparent to 18-year Democratic Congressmember Lois Capps — will be representing Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and a portion of Ventura County, in Congress next year. Joan Hartmann, similarly backed and embraced by the Democratic establishment, beat out rival Bruce Porter for the all-important 3rd District supervisorial seat, maintaining a Democratically inclined environmental tilt on the Board of Supervisors. State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson cakewalked into another term, and school boardmember Monique Limón — pegged as the next rising star in the left’s political firmament — trounced an opponent for the State Assembly whose name is known only to friends and relatives.
All this was achieved by systematically and exhaustively strip-mining the political idealism of young students densely packed into Isla Vista’s overwhelmed and overpriced rental stock. Democrats led get-out-the-vote efforts in Isla Vista, which generated no fewer than 13,080 ballots cast, a new all-time record. Isla Vista voters approved a limited form of self-government by overwhelmingly voting in the creation of a new Community Services District, though landlords kicked up enough of a fuss that the revenue-generating measure needed to fund this entity went down in defeat.
