Malibu Voters Mirror State and National
Political Momentum
• Local Preferences Differ on Prop 8
and 9, School Board and Judicial Candidates
It may be another week before the final
vote tallies are in for all of the election precincts in Los
Angeles County, including those in Malibu and Malibu
Heights, but no one expects many changes, except on the few
ballot measures that are too close to call.
According to the preliminary vote count,
71.2 percent of registered voters in incorporated and
unincorporated Malibu went to the polls, a percentage
expected to increase as the remaining provisional,
dropped-off absentee and other ballots that
require hand counting are added to the totals.
To no one’s great surprise, the 90265
zip code was Obamaland by almost two-to-one in the City of
Malibu voting precincts, as well as in the precincts for the
unincorporated area of Malibu, which is officially
designated Malibu Heights by the Los Angeles
County Registrar-Recorder’s Office.
The unofficial presidential vote tallies
for the city are Barack Obama, 3865, and John McCain,
1992; with 41 votes for Peace and Freedom candidate Ralph
Nader, 40 votes for Libertarian Bob Barr; 14
votes for Greens Cynthia McKinney; and 12 votes for
American Independent Alan Keyes.
In the unincorporated segment of Malibu,
traditionally more conservative than the shoreline but no
longer so, Obama received 832 votes to
McCain’s 495; Barr tallied 12 votes; Nader, 8;
Keyes, 6; and McKinney, 2.
With all of the media and campaign insider
emphasis on the record-setting registration of black and
Hispanic voters and their important role in Obama’s
historic victory, some political scientists are starting to ask
whether other major demographic shifts are not being accorded
their political due.
When those numbers are factored into the
victory equation, Malibu’s demographics mirror changes on
the national level that may have been just as, or even more,
important to the Obama win than the minority votes.
Campaign analysts are still digesting
the numbers, but there are signs that the fastest growing group
of voters in America are individuals who earn $100,000 or
more. When added to those making over $75,000, they comprise a
majority of what is the highest-income electorate in U. S.
history.
Among voters in the $250,000-plus bracket,
the group Obama says he plans to tax more, the candidate also
appears to have fared well, although how much of that outcome
was due to an anybody-but-a-Republican-candidate mindset is
still subject to study.
This strong percentage of higher
income voters usually among the GOP faithful may have
voted Democratic when their normally secure financial status
did not provide immunity from the miasma now gripping the
economy.
That Obama received record vote counts from
a greatly expanded minority voter base is undisputed.
Yet, ironically, especially if gay marriage is viewed as a
civil rights issue, three-fourths of all minority voters in
California voted in favor of Prop 8, which Obama had said he
opposed, then calculatedly shied away from throughout the
campaign.
However, that was not the case with
affluent non-minority voters who overwhelmingly backed
Obama. They opposed the effort to ban same sex unions by
solid margins throughout the state.
That also was the case with City of
Malibu voters who were adamantly opposed to Prop 8,
voting against it 4032 to 1775. Unincorporated voters were
also no-on-8 voters by 808 to 526.
Running unopposed for another term in the
30th Congressional District, Democrat Henry Waxman’s
numbers paralleled Obama’s, an indication of his
popularity within the district and the powerful anti-GOP
sentiment.
In the 23rd State Senate District race,
similar patterns marked Democrat Fran Pavley’s solid
win over the Republican and Libertarian
candidates.
In the 41st State Assembly District
race, incumbent Democrat Julia Brownley appeared to show
somewhat more non-partisan support as she claimed victory with
more than the party faithful in her political corner.
In the Superior Court race with the
greatest local interest, candidate Cynthia Loo, who grew up in
Malibu, lost overall, but won her hometown with 5131 votes of
the total cast by the 7362 voters who went to the polls. Vote
totals in other court races without a local component were
much lower.
Malibuites supported Measures 2, 3, 1A, 11,
12, R and U.
Measure 9, named Marsy’s Law after a
young Malibu woman who was murdered, won statewide,
but may have lost by a small margin in Malibu, another
reflection of strong party line voting.
Measure AA, which won handily overall,
barely achieved the 55 percent vote it needed in
Malibu and Malibu Heights precincts. The
measure’s proponents waged a strong advertising campaign
in Malibu, which overcame growing resistance to increased
funding for Santa Monica College, which still has unspent
monies from a previous measure.
In the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified
School District board race, localism trumped other issues,
but not in the final outcome.
Local school product Ben Allen the top
vote-getter won a seat, but Chris Bley. who also grew up in the
district and was only 130 Malibu votes behind him, well
ahead of the other winners, Maria Leon-Vazquez and
Jose Escarce, didn’t. The three successful candidates had
the support of powerful Santa Monica political organizations.
Malibuites, however, did agree with the
final results for the three Santa Monica
Community College board posts and gave Susan
Aminoff, Robert Rader and Margaret Quinones-Perez
their votes.
Local Congressional representatives, Henry
Waxman for the city, and Brad Sherman for
mountain areas, as well as U. S. Senators Diane
Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, indicate they expect a
record number of requests for the limited number of
bleacher seat tickets for Obama’s inauguration on Jan.
20.
Waxman has already posted an electronic
application form on his Web site. Information about general
public access to inaugural events is available at http:
//inaugural.senate.gov/index.cfm
