Republican Beth Gaines wins California Assembly contest

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/4/11 | Torey Van Oot

[SmithL]

Republican Beth Gaines has won the election to fill her husband's former Assembly seat.

Gaines was ahead of Roseville Democrat Dennis Campanale in Tuesday's runoff election for the 4th Assembly District, leading 55 percent to 45 percent, with 90 percent of precincts reporting.

The two emerged as the top vote-getters in an eight-way March primary election triggered by the January election of her husband, Ted Gaines, to an overlapping state Senate seat.

While Gaines edged out her closest GOP rival by just one percentage point in the primary, she was considered the clear front-runner in this round of balloting.

Campanale, a retired firefighter, raised and spent less than $5,000 on his campaign - not nearly enough to counter Gaines' higher profile and Republicans' double-digit voter registration edge in the district, which includes Alpine County and parts of Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento counties.

The matchup resulted in a low-key runoff contest, save for a last-minute mail blitz by a labor-backed campaign committee. The committee, which is funded in part by a firefighters' union backing Campanale, reported spending nearly $40,000 to mail voters' pamphlets in the final weekend of the campaign. The mail attacked Gaines' positions on the state budget.

[SmithL]

4th Assembly District GOP candidate Beth Gaines chats with residents at a February forum in her race against Democrat Dennis Campanale.

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“[Democratic opponent] Campanale, a retired firefighter ... “

Y’know, until about 15 years ago, this would have been a “plus” with me as a voter — and, of course, I still respect firefighters for the risks they take. But today, what I mostly see in “retired firefighter” is “big public-sector union goon who will fight for higher taxes and zero reductions to bloated compensation packages for public-sector employees, no matter what.”