East Bay state Sen. Steve Glazer’s re-election campaign will not be able to tout the full backing of the California Democratic Party. The incumbent Seventh District state senator failed to come close to receiving the requisite support from fellow Democrats to win the endorsement at the party’s convention last weekend in Long Beach.
Glazer received 34 votes to Democratic challenger Marisol Rubio’s 31. The total was far from the 60 percent required for a candidate to receive the party’s endorsement.
“It says a lot. SD7 is clearly saying, ‘No thank you to Steve Glazer.’ We’re not happy with what you bring to us. You don’t connect with us and you are not addressing our needs,” Rubio said Monday night at the Tri-Valley Democratic Club in Dublin.
For Rubio, an unknown, first-time candidate, the ability to block Glazer from the party’s endorsement is significant. A candidate’s use of the party’s logo on political mailers, for instance, can be powerfully persuasive to regular voters, particularly those who vote strictly partisan.
While Glazer is unpopular with Democratic leaders in both Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, his brand of moderate politics and consistent opposition to BART unions, has resonated among voters in a district that covers areas that include Antioch, Lamorinda, Walnut Creek, and the Tri-Valley. Glazer won the seat in a 2015 special election against fellow Democrat Susan Bonilla.
ebcitizen.com 