The conventional wisdom in the wake of Thursday's historic Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act is that while it was a huge policy victory for President Obama, it could be a political victory for Republicans running for Congress this fall. (The issue will be at best muted at the presidential level, given that the program known as Obamacare was modeled after a virtually identical Massachusetts plan enacted by Mitt Romney when he was governor.)

We'll see. It may be that the Supreme Court victory will embolden supporters to do a better job explaining and asserting the popular elements of the Affordable Care Act and making the point that for most middle-class Americans it will either mean no change in their health insurance (since they already get it through their employer) or make it easier and more affordable for them to purchase health insurance through the individual market. To date, Republicans have been winning the rhetoric about healthcare reform, seizing on confusion among voters who seem to believe that the individual mandate (now officially called a "tax" by the Supreme Court's ruling) will affect more than a relative handful of Americans.

In any event, in the wake of the decision Democratic candidate Julia Brownley certainly didn't shrink from talking about it. She issued a news release praising the decision and attempting to put Republican Tony Strickland on the defensive.

"Today's decision is great news for the millions of Americans who will have access to health care for the first time, to the seniors who will have the cost of their prescription drugs reduced, to those with pre-existing conditions who are being denied insurance, and to our small businesses who will be able to provide coverage to their employees at a lower cost," Brownley said in her statement. "Unfortunately, my opponent Tony Strickland wants to repeal these provisions and go back to the status quo of a system that enriches the insurance and drug companies but leaves middle-class Americans vulnerable to economic catastrophe for simply getting sick."

The Strickland campaign did not make a public statement on the decision. During the primary, he told me in an interview that he would vote to overturn the Affordable Care Act if elected to Congress and given the opportunity to do so.

Interestingly, however, earlier in the week Strickland seized an opportunity to speak out on behalf of government-financed healthcare. After Democratic leaders in the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown agreed to a budget deal that will eliminate the state's Healthy Families Program and transition the 880,000 children covered by it into Medi-Cal, Republicans in Sacramento rose to the program's defense -- with Strickland the first to raise his microphone on the Senate floor to speak out against the proposal.

"It's a shame the majority party wants to eliminate a program that has been a successful alternative for families and children across California," Strickland said in a statement released by his office. "We need to ensure kids have access to quality healthcare, not transfer them to a program with a history of poor performance."

It should be interesting this fall if the issue of government-subsidized healthcare comes up in any candidate forums featuring both of them. Strickland could be asked, given his stated feelings about Healthy Families, why he opposes a federal program to broadly expand access to quality healthcare. And Brownley could be asked, given her support for expanding access to healthcare, why she did not vote against a bill to eliminate a children's healthcare program in California that has been popular and effective.

The ballot initiative that you are likely to hear more about this fall than any other is one that purports to be designed to limit the influence of special interests in California politics. Its primary goal is to hogtie labor unions by forcing them to get written permission from members before spending any money on political campaigns, but that objective is obscured by presenting the initiative as a political reform measure.

It proposes to prohibit unions and corporations from directly contributing to candidates for state office and to political parties. But, as anyone who's been even casually following the presidential campaign so far this year knows, the real money in politics these days is in the Super PACS, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money.

The natural outcome of banning corporate contributions to candidates would be to divert even more corporate money into Super PACs, or what have long been known in California politics as "independent expenditure committees." The initiative would not do anything about the fundraising and spending by independent expenditure committees, and indeed it could not under the rules laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Citizens United decision.

That isn't stopping the promoters of the union-stifling initiative from trying to capitalize on the growing public distaste about the role of Super PACs in American politics, as Brian Brokaw of the group formed to oppose the initiative, called Alliance for a Better California 2012, discovered the other day.

He pointed out in an email to reporters today that when one does a Google News search for Super PACs, the second item that pops up is a paid ad from the initiative campaign that says, "Super PAC reform."

The initiative would no nothing of the sort. To suggest that it would is as deceptive as packaging an attempt to muzzle labor unions through an initiative that bills itself as campaign finance reform.

Edward Headington, the moderate Democrat who calls himself the "purple choice" in the heavily Republican 38th Assembly District, today announced what he called a "game-changing" endorsement -- that of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican. In addition, Headington announced the support of Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch Englander, another Republican.

The high-profile GOP endorsements will no doubt help Headington try to make his case that he is in fact a moderate choice in his race against conservative Republican Scott Wilk.

Headington notes that Riordan "overhwhelmingly carried the San Fernando Valley" in his two campaigns for mayor, but there is a problem using that fact to demonstrate Riordan's potential popularity in the district. Forget the fact that Riordan was three mayors ago, and the voters' familiarity with his name and reputation has long faded. The real problem is that a significant majority of district voters don't live in the city of Los Angeles.

Most of the 176,962 voters who live in Los Angeles County reside in Santa Clarita, an incorporated city in its own right. Another 68,572 voters live in Simi Valley.

Headington surely will benefit by pointing to Riordan's support as evidence that he really is the kind of Democrat that independents and moderate Republicans can feel comfortable with. But if he's counting on any star power associated with Riordan's name in the district, it's just not there.

Post-election developments before the summer campaign lull...

A PATH THROUGH THE JUNGLE -- Much of the post-election analyses in California has centered on what the primary election results indicate about the prospects for congressional elections in the fall. As a couple of earlier posts have noted, the basic narrative has been this: Republicans say the results show they are at parity in the new congressional district landscape, and that Democrats have no chance at picking up the 4 to 6 seats they had originally hoped to gain. Democrats say they're still in pretty good shape.

One provocative analysis comes from the National Journal, which sought to place the June 5 results in some historical perspective. The Journal article notes that, while this was the first top-two primary in the state, California had something very much like it in place in 1998 and 2000. Those two primaries were conducted under rules (since tossed out by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held they were unconstitutional) that allowed every voter to choose from among all candidates, regardless of party. The political pros called it a jungle primary. The key difference from today's top-two primary was that all the valid political parties that fielded a candidate were guaranteed a place on the November ballot.

Examining the results from the 1998 and 2000 primaries, the Journal found that "Democratic general election candidates were far more likely to improve upon their primary showings (and to improve by a greater extent) than were Republicans." In other words, the article used actual historical data to try to validate the Democrats' assertion that they will fare far better in November, when voter turnout will be much higher.

Intrigued by this analytical approach, I decided to test it on a candidate who competed in 1998, in 2000, and is a candidate again this year -- Republican Tony Strickland, running against Democrat Julia Brownley in the 26th Congressional District.

Strickland ran for the Assembly in 1998 and 2000 in a district that was geographically similar, but smaller, to the current congressional district.

In the June 1998 primary, Strickland won the Republican nomination in a crowded GOP field. He received 27.7 percent of the vote. More significantly, the Republican candidates combined received 64 percent. The sole Democrat, Roz McGrath, received 36 percent. In the general election, the Democratic share rose to 47.6 while the Republican share dropped to 48.9 percent, as Strickland beat McGrath in a very close race.

In the March 2000 primary, the same two were on the ballot again. This time, Strickland was the only Republican on the ballot, and received 56 percent of the vote. McGrath had a Democratic challenger that year (Port Hueneme Councilman Jon Sharkey). She received 31.2 percent, and the Democratic share of the primary vote was 42.1 percent. In November, the Democratic share rose by 4 percentage points and the Republican share dropped by nearly 5 percentage points. Again, Strickland won a relatively close race, 51.3 percent to 46.4 percent.

In both instances, there were fairly dramatic shifts between the primary and the general election, with the Republican share dropping by 15 points and 5 points, respectively, and the Democratic share increasing by 11 points and 4 points, respectively.

To be sure, the 1998 race had some very unique elements. There were five Republicans on the ballot that year, and the race attracted extensive coverage in Southern California after a Strickland campaign volunteer captured GOP opponent Rich Sybert on video personally tearing down a large Strickland campaign sign late at night (and having lied about the allegation until the video was released to catch him in the lie). There's no question all the attention given that incident drove up the share of votes received by the Republican field in that primary.

The 2000 elections, however, provide a fairly clean comparison with today. It was a presidential election year and there were no pre-election incidents to skew the turnout. And in the general election, Strickland's share dropped by 5 percentage points.

In the election two weeks ago, Strickland received 44 percent. The Democratic share, led by Brownley's 27 percent, was 37.5 percent. In this case, however, the X factor was the presence of independent Linda Parks on the ballot. She received 18 percent.

There are no definitive conclusions to be gleaned here, other than to note that it is highly likely that the Democratic share of the vote will increase significantly in November.

There is one other important point that should be noted: In both those instances, Strickland won.

BETTER TO HOLD A FUNDRAISER THAN TO HITCH-HIKE -- Democratic Assembly candidate Eileen MacEnery, who pulled off a surprise primary victory despite running a campaign on a shoestring budget that couldn't afford even a shoestring, held a fundraiser over the weekend. The goal was rather modest: To come up with enough money to pay for trip to Sacramento tomorrow to attend Speaker John Perez' session for Democratic Assembly candidates around the state.

TOO MUCH FUN -- One gets the sense that the campaign strategists for Democratic Rep. Lois Capps of Santa Barbara are having too much fun with the split among Central Coast Republicans over the campaign of congressional challenger Abel Maldonado in the 24th District.

Maldonado was pilloried by conservatives during the primary, to the point where national conservative leader Grover Norquist put out an 11th hour appeal urging his defeat. He was challenged in the primary by actor Chris Mitchum, a conservative with Tea Party credentials. Maldonado prevailed for second place, 30 percent to 22 percent.

In a radio interview the morning after the election, Maldonado said he had received a call from Mitchum the night before pledging his support during the general election.

The Capps campaign last week was very quick to call to reporters' attention a subsequent letter from Mitchum to the Santa Barbara online news organization Noozhawk.com asserting that his call to Maldonado was a gentlemanly offer of congratulations, but by no means an endorsement.

"I entered the 24th District congressional race because I strongly support political principles that Abel Maldonado obviously doesn't share and, on that basis, I cannot endorse him," Mitchum wrote. "For me to do so would violate the principles and the trust of my loyal 25,000 supporters who voted for me on June 5."

In a phone conference with reporters yesterday, the deputy political director of the National Republican Congressional Committee said the GOP is at "about parity" with Democrats in the battle for competitive House seats in California this fall -- and that one of the key reasons is that three of what he called 'A-list' candidates for Democrats are now out of the picture.

One of those was Pete Aguilar, a homegrown, local mayor in San Bernardino County, who was victimized by a four-way split vote among Democratic candidates in the 31st District and ended up finishing behind the two Republicans on the ballot. Another was Blong Xiong, a Fresno City Council member who was backed by state and national Democrats, but finished 513 votes out of the money in the 21st District, behind an underfunded Democrat who ran practically no campaign.

And the third is a candidate who dropped out before the race even began -- Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett in the 26th District.

"When he withdraw, Democrats had to settle for a second-tier candidate," said Brock McCleary of the NRCC. "I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I think Bennett would have stood a better chance."

Lenny Young, strategist for the Julia Brownley campaign, naturally took exception to the description of a three-term assemblywoman who was among the top Democrat challengers in fundraising this spring as a "B-list" candidate. He counters that it is the Republicans who have the problem of fielding a candidate in Sen. Tony Strickland who doesn't fit the district.

"They have a Tea Party candidate who is wrong on every single issue the residents of Ventura County care about, including being on the wrong side of women's health, siding with the big corporate special interests over the middle class and backing the privatization of Social Security," Young wrote in an email. "It's no surprise they are being defensive right out of the gate."

McCleary, naturally, was talking up the resumes of Republican candidates, including Strickland in the 26th District. He said Strickland starts with an advantage because he has represented the entire congressional district in the Legislature, while Democrat Brownley, formerly of Santa Monica, has represented only about a sixth of it. He acknowledged that the numbers on paper make the district a 50-50 proposition for either party. "Tony has literally made a career of winning tough races and beating the odds," McCleary said.

McCleary said both parties have had to educate themselves about California, which has not been a focus of congressional campaigns for decades. The competitive new districts are challenging playing fields, he said, that won't be decided by the kind of hyper-partisan campaigning that frequently marks campaigns in traditional battleground states.

"In many cases, these will be outside of the national narrative," he said. "You'll have individualized races. The question is, how does a Democrat or Republican get beyond just party labels? They will each have the vote that will naturally be there for them, Republican or Democrat, but how do you get that extra few percentage points to get you over 50 percent?"

One approach that won't work, he said, is the kind of boilerplate partisan approaches -- for Republicans, for instance, attacks that smear either President Obama or House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- that are often employed elsewhere. McCleary acknowledged that there is a danger for both parties that outside groups will pay for the same kind of advertising that they're accustomed to using elsewhere.

"The boilerplate stuff on both sides is not going to work in these districts," he said.

With the arrival of the top-two primary, elections officials no longer provide a figure for primary election turnout by party, but because this year was a presidential year it is possible to make a pretty good estimate. That's because the presidential contest is not affected by the top-two primary, which means only Democrats (and the rare independent who requests a Democratic ballot) can vote in their party's presidential primary, and only Republicans can vote in theirs. Using the presidential primary voting data produces an estimate that reveals -- no surprise here -- that Democratic voters are not nearly as likely to participate in primary elections than Republicans.

Based on results tabulated so far in Ventura County, 40,644 ballots were cast in the Democratic presidential primary, while 48,603 were cast in the Republican presidential primary. If all partisan voters cast a ballot for president last week (and it was the first item on the ballot), that would mean a Republican turnout of 32.2 percent and a Democratic turnout of 25.8 percent.

Put another way, it would mean that Republican voters accounted for 44.1 percent of the county electorate, while Democrats accounted for 36.9 percent. So, even though Democrats hold a 1.6 percentage-point advantage in registered voters in the county, on Tuesday Republicans held a 7.2 percentage-point advantage in actual voters.

Historically, that turnout gap has always been narrowed in general elections, especially in presidential years. Democrats will have to hope -- and work at it -- to make sure that happens again. Otherwise, those new districts that inspired so much hope among them will produce pretty much the same result as the old districts: Republican domination in the county's partisan elected offices.

And what about the theory that the top-two primary would inspire greater participation by independents, who largely stayed at home during previous party primaries? Only 21.3 percent of voters last Tuesday did not cast a presidential primary ballot -- meaning that turnout among independents was even more depressed than that of Democrats.

Over the last two days, two out-of-town experts -- the Rothenberg Political Report out of Washington and AroundtheCapitol.com out of Sacramento -- both reclassified the 26th Congressional District from "toss-up" to "leans Republican," based on the primary election results.

Both used the argument that Democrat Julia Brownley would need to capture "almost all" of the votes received by independent Linda Parks to close the gap with Republican Tony Strickland. How quickly these out-of-towners seem to have forgotten the dynamic that made this race interesting in the first place, which is the fact that there were four Democrats on the ballot. Jess Herrera, David Cruz Thayne and Albert Goldberg combined to get about 9,500 votes. If all their voters were to stay in the Democratic column in November, and Parks' voters were to split 50-50 between Brownley and Strickland, the gap would be fairly narrow.

And even that analysis seems kind of silly, frankly. Given the pathetic turnout on Tuesday, it's likely that there will be about 200,000 ADDITIONAL voters in November. How those voters break will be what determines this race. My view is that this race is just getting started, and it still looks like a toss-up to me.

Post-election notes before heading to the golf course after logging 44 hours of work in 60-hour period from Tuesday morning to Thursday night (please excuse any typos)...

WILK CONFOUNDS THE POLLSTERS -- From the outset in Simi Valley's 38th Assembly District primary, it seemed that Scott Wilk fit the profile of a likely winner. He'd been around Republican politics most of his adult life, been elected to the local community college district board, had the support of outgoing Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, was a son of the Antelope Valley, had solid conservative credentials, even had the endorsement of his ex-boss, conservative icon Tom McClintock.

But the polling, folks kept telling me, showed otherwide. The reason, apparently, was that he was running against two bigger political names in area Republican politics -- McKeon and Strickland. Nevermind that his opponents weren't actually the individuals who established those name brands. One, Patricia McKeon, was the wife of Rep. Buck McKeon. The other, Paul Strickland, just happened to share the same name, but no family relationship, with Sen. Tony Strickland.

At one point, I was told by those who claimed to have seen both Republican and Democratic polling, Wilk was in third place among the three Republicans.

But he did all the right things. Went to all the forums, establishing himself as the most knowledgeable and qualified Republican candidate in the minds of opinion leaders around the district. He used some smart mail that compared himself with his two opponents, who he labeled as "Patricia (not Buck) McKeon" and "Paul (not Tony) Strickland." He came up with a clever idea to build his own name brand, adopting a slogan of "Got Wilk?"

And, in a move that was clever even for those who didn't get the jab at one of his opponents, he put that "Got Wilk" slogan on reusable grocery bags that he distributed at the Simi Valley street fair. The bags -- at 75 cents apiece, he told me -- were considerably more expensive than the giveaways of other candidates (pens, refrigerator magnets, etc.). But visitors needed a bag in which to put all the other goodies from the street fair, ensuring that the "Got Wilk" message would make it all the way home. And the jab? Patricia McKeon had said the reason she was running was that she had an epiphany in a grocery store when she was told she'd have to pay 10 cents for each paper bag. Had she had a reusable bag with her, of course, that would have been no issue.

You gotta hand it to a candidate with a subtle sense of humor.

AN UNCLAIMED NAME BADGE -- I spoke last night at the annual dinner meeting of the Ventura Council of Governments. The gathering included delegations from 9 of the county's 10 cities, mostly council members and top administrators, as well as countywide elected officials. (Nearly everywhere one turned, there was either a declared or possible candidate for Oxnard mayor.) When I checked in, I noticed there was a name badge on the reception table for Linda Parks. Somehow, I knew that one was going to go unclaimed.

Parks has been out of communication since falling short on Tuesday in her independent candidacy for Congress. It's perfectly understandable. It was a tough loss, and the first one of her political career. In addition, she probably has some sorting out to do before making any public comment about the race going forward -- for instance, whether she will back either Republican Tony Strickland or Democrat Julia Brownley. After two races in two years in which she was alternately attacked by Republicans and Democrats, it's difficult to imagine her being enthusiastic about either choice.

As she pointed out in an email to supporters last weekend, however, Parks does have an upbeat, exciting day to look forward to coming up next weekend: Her two sons, Roger and Dan, will graduate next Saturday on the same day from U.C. Davis and U.C. Riverside.

Now that I've wrapped up a column and a news story for the old-fashioned print edition of The Star, time to share some inside-baseball info with the political junkies at "95 percent accurate*" ...

THE VOTES THAT WILL REALLY MATTER -- In interviews with Julia Brownley and Tony Strickland today, both asserted they are well positioned to capture a large share of the more than 15,500 votes that went to Linda Parks on Tuesday. To be sure, those votes will be important, but of far more importance will be the votes of those who did not participate in the primary.

The turnout in Ventura County on Tuesday stands at 25 percent of registered voters, a figure that will grow only slightly after the late mail-in ballots are counted. On Nov. 6, based on historical voter participation in presidential elections, turnout will be somewhere between 70 percent and 75 percent. That means there will be two new voters for every repeat voter from the primary. It's not just a difference universe of voters that the candidates will have to appeal to, it's a different galaxy.

STRICKLAND'S WHEREABOUTS -- It was noted here last week that Strickland missed the daylong Senate floor session last Tuesday, during the frentic final week before the deadline to pass bills out of their house of origin. He told Senate staff he would be absent, citing unspecified personal business.

Strickland told me today that he was in Washington, D.C., last Tuesday to attend an event sponsored by national GOP leaders to introduce their 12 identified "Young Guns," the designation given to the challengers they consider to be the most promising. Although he did not hold a fundraiser while there, the event did have its rewards. A 48-hour campaign finance report filed late week revealed more than $50,000 in contributions from members of Congress and Washington-based political action committees.

IT'S THE WOMAN, STUPID -- You gotta give credit to Eileen MacEnery, the surprise Demcoratic winner in the 44th Assembly District on Tuesday. Unlike Marta Jorgensen, the surprise winner of the 2008 Democratic congressional primary in Ventura County, she did not try to ascribe her victory to having "gotten my message out" or having "a message that resonated with voters." Just as Jorgensen won only because she had a superior ballot designation ("Educator"), MacEnery won only because she was a woman and the other Democrat on the ballot who was also unfamiliar to most voters was a man.

She acknowledged that to my colleague Gretchen Wenner, who wrote the story on the race today.

MORE TROOPS TO THE BATTLEGROUND -- The 26th Congressional District was always going to be a California battleground in the fall election (assuming a Democratic candidate advanced that far), but it now appears it will be an even bigger one.

That's because of the stunning result in the Inland Empire's 31st Congressional District. Although that new district had been classified as "leans Democratic," a fierce, well-funded battle between two Republicans produced the surpise result of the two GOP candidates finishing first and second. Now, Democrats won't have a candidate there in the fall -- the so-called "nightmare scenario" of the top-two primary that Democrats feared was a possibility in the 26th.

So where will the Democratic and Republican troops and resources that might have been devoted to the 31st District this fall now go? One likely place is Ventura County.

A POLITICAL SKILL WE ALL COULD LEARN -- While interviewing the candidate at a Newbury Park restaurant today, a busboy came up to her, asked if she was Julia Brownley and then congratulated her.

Brownley's response: "And you must be Ramon."

He nodded, and walked away smiling.

"How did you know his name?" I asked.

"Employee name tag," she answered.

Some might dismiss that sort of thing as what they see as the typical fake sincerity of a politician. Me, I wish I could develop skills like that. No matter what the endeavor, a personal touch never hurts.

MY FRIEND HOWARD -- Rep. Elton Gallegly has been mostly silent about political affairs in Ventura County since announcing early this year that he will retire at the end of this term. But he made his voice heard in the primary race between Democratic Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman in the San Fernando Valley.

Gallegly wrote a "Dear Republican" letter that Berman mailed to GOP voters. It began:

"I have served in the U.S. Congress for almost 26 years. In those years, I have compiled a consistent voting record as a conservative. While there are tough and important decisions to make in the upcoming election, most believe that the race for Congress where you live will come down to a contest between two Democrats: Brad Sherman and Howard Berman.

"This is the first time I have written a letter in support of a Democrat. But U.S. Representative Howard L. Berman has a long history of working with Republicans toward sensible solutions to our country's problems, and he is respected for his honesty and dedication to his principles by Republicans as well as Democrats."

Campaign updates on vote-casting day...

AT LEAST THEY SHOULDN'T TAKE LONG TO COUNT -- The first thing to look for tonight will be a pronounced lack of votes. The Field Poll is predicting 35 percent of registered voters and Paul Mitchell of the Redistricting Report, using modeling based on the return rate of mail-in ballots, is forecasting an even lower number, from 28 percent to 30 percent.

A turnout that low would probably spell trouble for the independent candidates running around the state, including Linda Parks in the 26th Congressional District. It will mean only the most engaged (also read as "most partisan") voters are casting ballots -- just as has happened in the past under mostly-closed party-nominating primaries.This statewide primary is very much like the one four years ago, when the presidential voting was done separately in February. There is no top-of-ticket competition and there are no hot-button ballot initiatives. Turnout then was 28 percent.

If turnout is in fact very low, some analysts are certain to argue that the top-two primary is a failure. If so, it will be a premature verdict. It will take several cycles for the message to sink into the electorate that the new primary empowers voters in ways in which they were previously unaccustomed. A few surprise results around the state might help make that point.

DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE GENERAL -- Presidential elections typically attract a turnout of from 70 percent to 75 percent of registered voters. What that likely means is that more than twice as many people will vote in November as voted today. It will be an entirely different universe.

Given that, it was amusing to read yesterday an email from Mike Stoker, the Republican candidate in the 19th Senate District race, advising reporters how they should read the results. He suggested the key number will be the combined percentage of vote that he and Democrat Jason Hodge receive vs. the percentage received by Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson. "Low 50s a good night. Mid 50s a great night," Stoker wrote. And high 50s an off the chart night. So there you have it with no spin."

That statement actually has more spin than a Clayton Kershaw curveball. First, it makes a very dubious assumption that all or most of the votes for Hodge would transfer to Stoker in November. If Hodge were to finish second, one could argue that the reverse might be true (Republicans switching in the fall to the more conservative Democrat). But the major problem with that analysis is that it doesn't take into account that there will likely be more new voters in November than voters who participated in the primary.

Campaign updates on election eve...

REPUBLICAN NUMBERS KEEP RISING -- The final voter registration report for Tuesday's primary has been released by the Secretary of State, and it shows that Republicans have continued to make gains in Ventura County this spring.

As of May 21, the Democrats' edge in countywide voter registration stood at 6,620 voters -- down from 10,657 on Jan. 3. Of potential electoral significance, the Democrats' 5.7 percentage-point advantage in the 26th Congressional District has fallen to just 4.5 percentage points.

The Republicans' gains this year, however, haven't wiped out the ground they've lost since the previous presidential election. Compared to the same point in the 2008 election cycle, Democrats have gained about 2,900 voters while Republicans have picked up fewer than 400. In that year, Democrats made a big surge between the primary election and the general election.

Here are the key figures going into tomorrow's primary: Democrats 38.74 percent, Republicans 37.11 percent.

TURNOUT SO FAR -- Today's report from Political Data Inc. on ballot returns in the 26th Congressional District show that the early turnout breakdown of votes by party is holding about steady. With 25 percent of all mail-in ballots returned (and 37 percent of those considered likely mail-in voters), 45 percent of the 38,989 votes cast so far have come Republicans, 40 percent from Democrats and 11 percent from nonpartisans.

IMPROPER USE OF UNIFORM? -- Ventura blogger Russell Burgos, an Iraq War veteran and UCLA lecturer, has written a stinging critique of a campaign mailer sent by 26th Congressional District candidate Tony Strickland that features a testimonial from retired Navy Capt. Brick Conners, the former commander of Naval Base Ventura County.

Burgos points out that Navy Regulations on the use of uniforms by retired officers states that wearing a uniform is not authorized for political purposes. Specifically, the regulation says, "Retired personnel are prohibited from wearing the uniform in connection with personal enterprises, business activities, or while attending or participating in any demonstration, assembly or activity for the purpose of furthering personal or partisan views on political, social, economic, or religious issues."

STRICKLAND'S CHECKS KEEP COMING -- Strickland had a pretty good week at fundraising last week, FEC reports show.

He took in more than $70,000, most in the form of contributions from members of Congress and conservative PACs, including House Speaker John Boehner ($4,000) and Rep. Paul Ryan's Prosperity PAC ($2,500).

Meanwhile, Democrat Julia Brownley took in slightly over $20,000, led by contributions from AFSCME ($2,500), House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer ($2,000) and $2,000 each from county Democratic clubs in the Conejo Valley, Oxnard and Ojai.

The reports show that independent Linda Parks boosted her campaign with a $10,000 contribution to the campaign from her personal funds on May 25.

Campaign notes four days from Election Day

THE INCUMBENT VS. THE UNKNOWN -- All the action this spring has been focused on the 26th Congressional District battleground, but there's another district where the voter-registration numbers are just as tight, and one that could spark another free-wheeling, free-spending campaign in the fall: the east county's 27th Senate District.

Whether it in fact comes into play in November could depend in part on Tuesday's primary election results. Incumbent Democrat Fran Pavley is fairly well known in the district and has buillt up her campaign treasury to more than three-quarters of a million dollars. Meanwhile, Republican Todd Zink, an L.A. County prosecutor, has never before run political office, got into the race late (on the last possible day) and has less than $30,000 in the bank.

State GOP leaders and the big-bucks financiers of independent expenditure campaigns will surely be watching to see how well Pavley fares on Tuesday -- especially in the Republican heart of the district, which is eastern Ventura County, Will the better-known Pavley outperform Democratic voter registration there, or will GOP voters in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Moorpark stick with the party line on a ballot that presents them a choice between Pavley and Zink?

This week, both candidates -- or, in Zink's case, a surrogate -- made an effort to at least introduce themselves. An independent group, funded largely by Chevron, the insurance industry and real estate interests, spent about $26,000 on a pro-Zink, anti-Pavley mailer.

Meanwhile, Pavley sent a positive piece that stresses her Ventura County roots (she spent more than two decades as a schoolteacher in Moorpark) and touting a long list of endorsements. Notably, while many Democrats have spent a lot of effort in recent weeks trying to discredit Supervisor Linda Parks, an independent candidate in the congressional race, Pavley proudly puts Parks at the very top of her list of endorsers.

SIMI VALLEY DISRESPECTED? -- The new political maps have devalued the political strength of Simi Valley, and its voters now make up on only about a third of new congressional and Assembly districts. In both cases, it is grouped with Santa Clarita and other portions of L.A. County. Predictably, most of the leading candidates in those races this year hail from Santa Clarita, including Rep. Buck McKeon running for re-election to Congress and his wife, Patricia, running for the Assembly.

Simi Valley GOP candidate Cathie Wright points to a news segment on the 25th Congressional District race aired by KCAL this week in which, she says, all of the candidates except her were interviewed.

"We are being pushed aside like an old suit that one has outgrown," she wrote in an email. "They acted like the Simi Valley part of the district was not important and did not matter... Is this a taste of how Simi Valley will be represented in Washington, D C.?"

THUMBS DOWN FROM GROVER -- The man behind the anti-tax pledge that most Republican officeholders and candidates have signed, Grover Norquist, made his position on the 24th Congressional District unambiguous in a scathing essay published on the conservative California blog Fashreport.org this week.

The piece was a full-throated attack on GOP candidate Abel Maldonado.

"He is an enemy of the taxpayer," Norquist wrote.

Norquist, of course, knows that the only way he can continue to keep Republican lawmakers bowing at his feet is if he strictly enforces his pledge. If Maldonado, who broke it when he voted for temporary tax increases as a state senator in 2009, prevails over conservative Chris Mitchum on Tuesday, it will not be a good thing for Norquist.

,