The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

Democrats dominate California

Jerry Brown triumphed Tuesday night in the race for governor, adding to the Democratic Party’s sweep of the state’s top officials.

 

As of The Channels’ 9 a.m. press deadline, Democrat Kamala Harris holds a thin lead over Republican candidate Steve Cooley. Democratic candidate Gavin Newsom defeated Santa Maria native and Republican candidate Abel Maldonando in the Lieutenant Governor’s race.

 

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Incumbent Barbara Boxer retained her seat in the U.S. Senate against Republican Carly Fiorina and Lois Capps did the same against Tom Watson in the race for the 23rd District of the U.S. House of Representatives.

 

“I am ready to work with the governor,” said newly reelected Congresswoman Lois Capps at her victory party Tuesday night. “We need a fantastic change in the educational system and plan to increase student loans and Pell Grants. The economy depends on an educated work force.”

 

Capps’ Republican opponent had a contrasting view on the governor results.

 

“The voters have spoken,” Watson said. “Meg would’ve been a better governor, but hopefully Brown will surprise me. He didn’t do a good job as governor first time around, and I don’t think it’ll be different now.”

 

The Republican’s laughter and excitement tapered for a moment at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort after Brown was declared the victor.

 

“I don’t think Meg Whitman really had the substance to be governor of California,” said Manoutchehr M.Eskandari-Qajar,City College Political Science professor. “She certainly has the money. If it were money-wise, she should be governor of the world.”

 

“Both the Universities of California and the California State Universities are in trouble budget wise,” Eskandari-Qajar said. “So I will hope that Jerry Brown as governor will be more open to not raising fees further for the UC and the CSU system.”

 

Although he doesn’t feel that City College will be affected directly, all the fees and issues are on the table and being decided now.

 

“Jerry Brown has this aura, you know. It reminds a lot of people of when he was governor and those were good times for California,” said Eskandari-Qajar.

Santa Barbara County favored Brown with 49,291(48.43%) votes over Whitman’s 47,070 (46.25%) votes.

Brown received 3,942,019 votes for 53.8 percent, against his Republican opponent Meg Whitman’s 3,015,066 votes for 41.2 percent, despite her spending more than $140 million on her campaign

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