Assemblyman Marc Levine on Wednesday conceded in his prolonged-shot bid to unseat California Insurance coverage Commissioner Ricardo Lara.
Levine, a San Rafael Democrat who has represented Marin and southern Sonoma counties after his election in 2012, wrote on Facebook that he could not make up the 6,420 votes as of Wednesday afternoon that had him at the rear of Republican Robert Howell, who trailed Lara in the June 7 main.
Howell experienced 1,210,981 votes, or 18.1% of the total, though Levine was at 1,204,561 votes symbolizing 18.% of the ballots counted from the election, in accordance to the California Secretary of State’s office. Lara experienced 2,406,926 votes, or 35.9%.
Levine wrote that “there just aren’t ample uncounted ballots still left to alter the result of the election.”
Ten years ago, Levine was the shock victor in a Democrat-on-Democrat runoff towards Michael Allen, the assistant majority chief, for the North Bay seat in the Assembly.
Levine introduced his operate for the insurance plan commissioner article very last September with a concentrate on campaign finance difficulties that have dogged fellow Democrat Lara given that he was elected in 2018 right after serving in the state Senate. The San Diego Union-Tribune claimed in May that Lara was a subject of a probe by the California Reasonable Political Techniques Commission above whether insurance coverage business donations were being diverted to unbiased groups to assistance his reelection.
But with the power of incumbency, Lara secured the endorsements from the vast majority of Democratic politicians in the condition that integrated area point out Sens. Monthly bill Dodd, of Napa, and Mike McGuire, of Healdsburg. Levine’s marketing campaign hardly ever took off exterior of endorsements from the editorial web pages of newspapers throughout the condition and he noted in his publish Wednesday that the “race was normally going to be an uphill fight.”
Meanwhile, the contest to exchange Levine in the Assembly will probable be a single of the most aggressive neighborhood races on the November ballot. The District 12 contest pits Damon Connolly, a former San Rafael councilman and current member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, in opposition to Marin County law firm and environmental activist Sara Aminzadeh, a member of the state Coastal Fee.
Connolly received the June key by only 1,318 votes, or a margin of .9%. Steve Schwartz, a Sonoma County resident and organic and natural farmer who placed third in the race, has endorsed Aminzadeh.
Sonoma County voters could be a decisive factor in the tumble election provided they outnumber all those from Marin. Aminzadeh received Sonoma County in the most important with 37.6% of the vote to Connolly’s 29.2%.