CA-03: Winning The Long-Term Battle

It may not happen this year, but CA-03 will be Democratic territory before too long.

Republican voter registration in California is on the decline, but nowhere is the effect more pronounced than in the Sacramento region's 3rd Congressional District.

Incumbent Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, now has the slimmest registration edge of any Republican-held congressional district in the state.

According to district registration figures updated before the Feb. 5 primary election by the secretary of state's office, the Republican advantage over Democratic registration has slipped below five percentage points, 41.6 percent to 36.9 percent. Before the 2006 general election, the GOP margin was almost 6.6 points.

This was made pretty clear when the percentage of Democratic turnout in the February 5 primary was 53.1%, also the largest of any Republican-held district in the state. There's something definitely happening in this district, most of which is located in Sacramento County. The demographics are shifting and Democrats have been very aggressive in registering new voters. Debra Bowen's focus on increasing registration led to thousands of new voters placed onto the rolls before the primary, and the residual effect of that is more Democrats. They of course need to be turned out. But it's clear that Lungren is paying attention to this development. After Bill Durston launched an effort to highlight Lungren's terrible environmental record (he has a 5% rating from the League of Conservation Voters), Lungren took a walk on the most recent environmental vote in the House - a vote to eliminate subsidies for oil companies and re-route those tax breaks to renewable energy companies. Lungren obviously feels some vulnerabilities on this, and he need look no further than at Richard Pombo. The LCV listed him as one of their "Dirty Dozen" in 2006, and that year, not only did Pombo end up losing, but 9 of the 13 "Dirty Dozen" (I guess it was a baker's dozen) lost as well.

If Bill Durston could secure some outside resources like that, this could be the sleeper Congressional race of 2008 in California. Keep an eye on this one.