RETURNING A FAVOR -- During the campaign season, Los Angeles Congressman Xavier Becerra made multiple trips to Ventura County to help fellow Democrat Julia Brownley campaign in the 26th District. He attended rallies and walked precincts with her in Latino neighborhoods.

That's what those who become leaders, both in Congress and other endeavors, do -- help their allies, who in turn will remember that help at the appropriate time.

For Brownley, that time came quickly. At her first opportunity to cast a vote, at a Democratic caucus meeting this week, Brownley nominated Becerra for the position of chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, to which he was elected by acclamation, becoming the fourth highest-ranking Democrat in the House.

BLOWING OUT CANDLES FROM THE GALLERY? -- When freshman Assemblyman Scott Wilk is sworn in on Monday, he will bring along quite a crowd of volunteers who worked on his campaign in Simi Valley and elsewhere in the 38th District. He told me expects about 50 people to come up from the district.

None will be more important than his mother, who will sit in the gallery to watch her son take the oath of office. It will be a special birthday moment on the day she turns 80.

ANOTHER SIGN OF A CHANGING COUNTY -- Some of the results on Election Day, notably Brownley's victory in the congressional race, revealed just how much the politics of Ventura County has shifted as a result of evolving demographics. But nothing speaks more loudly of the shift than the final countywide result on Proposition 30, the temporary tax increase that balanced this year's state budget and averted $6 billion in education spending cuts.

After the last provisional ballot was counted and the vote certified, Proposition 30 narrowly carried Ventura County -- 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent, or by 1,788 votes out of about 318,000 cast.

It is an unlikely result in a county that is the only Southern California county that has not yet passed a local sales tax increase to pay for transportation improvements, and home to an electorate that has a well-deserved reputation of being a very tough sell on proposed tax increases.

EXPECT SOME COMPETITION -- Encouraged by their local victories, it is likely that more than a few county Democrats will take an interest in becoming delegates to the California Democratic Party conventions the next two years.

Elections for those positions will take place either Saturday Jan. 12 or Sunday, Jan. 13, depending on the Assembly district. Six men and six women will be elected from each of the state's 80 Assembly districts.

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During the campaign season just past, outside interest groups, or super PACs, spent $8 million to influence congressional campaigns on the Ventura County-Santa Barbara County coast -- $4.4 million in the 26th Congressional District and $3.6 million in the 24th Congressional District.

These districts were in the top 10 percent of congressional races nationwide in attracting super PAC spending -- the 26th ranked 39th among the 435 House districts, and the 24th ranked 43rd. All those numbers are based on data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

With all that cash having been thrown around, a logical post-election question is: Who got their money's worth?

The Maplight Foundation has crunched all the numbers nationwide and come up with return-on-investment ratings for the super PACs that spent in congressional races. The percentages are determined by how much of the money they spent was in races in which the outcome produced the desired result.

Given that Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate and eight seats in the House, it's not suprising that Democratic super PACs received the highest return on investment.

The biggest winner among the groups that spent money on the Central Coast was also the group the spent the most money -- the House Majority PAC, which spent $1.5 million to help Democrat Julia Brownley in the 26th and $151,000 to help Rep. Lois Capps in the 24th. Boosted by the 100 percent return it received on those two races, its national return-on-investment rate was 70.7 percent.

Following is a list of the top super PAC spenders on those two races and their national returns on investment.

26th CD
-- House Majority PAC (Brownley), $1.5 million, 70.7 percent return
-- American Future Future Fund (Tony Strickland), $500,000, 5.6 percent return.
-- National Republican Congressional Committee (Strickland), $467,000, 31.9 percent return.
-- U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Strickland), $400,000, 6.9 percent return.
-- Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (Brownley), $233,000, 61.4 percent return.
-- SEIU (Brownley), $207,000, 67.8 percent return.

24th CD
-- Spirit of Democracy American (Abel Maldonado), $1.2 million, 37 percent return.
-- National Republican Congressional Committee (Maldonado), $798,000, 31.9 percent return.
-- Congressional Leadership Fund (Maldonado), $512,000, 60.4 percent return.
-- Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (Capps), $298,000, 61.4 percent return.
-- House Majority PAC (Capps), $151,000, 70.7 percent return.

As I wrote in my column in The Star today, Camarillo Assemblyman Jeff Gorell is urging his fellow Republicans to reassess their views on a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for several years. That, of course, is not a universal view among California conservatives -- a point that will be driven home over the next two years if the first candidate to form an exploratory committee to run for governor follows through on his plans.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a founder of the Minuteman movement in California, has announced on the Patriot Update website that he has taken the first step toward launching a campaign for governor. Sources say he recently informed his colleagues in the Assembly Republican caucus of his intent to do so.

If Donnelly gets any traction, it will create a familiar dilemma for the party. The conservative voters who often dominate the GOP primary remain very much concerned about the effects of illegal immigration, and other candidates will concede the tough-on-illegal-immigration position to him at their peril. But, as this month's election results revealed, any Republican who emerges from the primary with a strong position against allowing any form of amnesty for illegal immigrants will have almost no chance in the general election.

THAT'S "MacENERY," WITH A "D" -- Eileen MacEnery, the Democratic candidate in Ventura County's 44th Assembly District, has a challenging name to pronounce. She tells people that to pronounce those last three syllables correctly, say it like the word "energy," but without the "g." Judging from the election results, however, it's clear that the most important letter associated with her name was the "D" -- as in "party preference: Democrat."

MacEnery's candidacy provides a textbook example of just how powerful party preference was this month in partisan races. She had no experience in government, had never before run for elected office and spent just about zero money to promote her candidacy. She was running against an incumbent Republican, Jeff Gorell, who had received considerable publicity throughout the district for having just returned from Afghanistan, where he served for a year as an officer in the Navy Reserve.

Yet, with some ballots yet to be counted, Gorell is winning re-election by just 7 percentage points -- 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent.

It's fair to conclude, then, that the baseline vote for Democratic candidates in that district was 46.5 percent. That was the party-line vote.

Looking at the city-by-city breakdown, it's possible to compare how MacEnery fared compared to other, much higher-profile Democrats who spent millions of dollars on their campaigns. What it clearly shows is that partisan identification means almost everything in partisan races, and that those millions of dollars make only a relatively small difference on the margins.

In Thousand Oaks, MacEnery received 41 percent of the vote -- just 4 percentage points fewer than incumbent Democratic Sen. Fran Pavley received, and 5 percentage points fewer than winning Democratic congressional candidate Julia Brownley received.

In Oxnard, MacEnery fared even better relative to the other Democratic candidates. In fact, she outperformed Brownley and nearly matched President Barack Obama. MacEnery received 69 percent of the vote in Oxnard, one percentage point less than Obama and 3 percentage points more than Brownley.

What to make of this? Well, next time you hear someone complain about how members of Congress and the Legislature are "too partisan," you might point out that they are no more partisan than voters. As MacEnery's performance illustrates, most voters consider nothing other than a candidate's party preference when deciding who they want to represent them.

FOR GOP, A DANGEROUSLY FLAWED ANALYSIS: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker spoke at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley last week and, as Michele Willer-Allred reported in Friday's Ventura County Star, he had his own unique take on this month's election results.

For Republicans concerned about their party's future electoral prospects, Walker's analysis is dangerously misleading.

For one, he asserted -- as have other conservative's in the election's wake -- that Mitt Romney was a flawed candidate who did not effectively "communicate" conservative views.

In fact, polling results (which turned out to reflect to a high degree of accuracy the actual voter preferences) clearly suggest that Romney was the only one of multiple GOP contenders who had any chance of even making the election close. Remember that, just before the Iowa Caucus in January, polls showed Romney and President Barack Obama even in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, while Obama held double-digit leads over Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. The CBS News poll from Jan. 18 is reflective of what all the polls at the time were showing.

In addition, polling in October clearly showed that Romney closed ground on Obama -- gained "momentum," as the Romney campaign correctly proclaimed -- just at the time he softened his campaign rhetoric and began to present himself as more of a moderate than he projected himself to be during the Republican primary campaign.

Even more off-base was Scott's analysis of the vote in Wisconsin. Democrats won both of the two statewide races, with Obama beating Romney by 7 percentage points, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin defeating former Gov. Tommy Thompson in the U.S. Senate race. In district-level races, however, Republicans increased their majorities in both houses of the state Legislature.

Scott said those results show that "each race is independently viewed by the voters," and suggest a strong show of support for the Republican-controlled state government.

But that analysis leaves out one important consideration -- the 2011 redistricting that was controlled by the Republican Legislature, which created districts that maximized the GOP vote in Wisconsin. The most plausible explanation for why two Democrats won statewide while Republicans won in district-level races is that gerrymandering works.

An analysis of 11 contested state senate races by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism analysis shows just how well it worked, While Republicans won six of those seats, including two that had previously been held by Democrats, a slight majority of the combined vote in those 11 districts (50.5 percent) went to Democratic candidates.

This is the same comparative metric, by the way, that Republicans in California used back in the 1980s (the last time California had a truly partisan redistricting scheme in place) to rightly show how badly gerrymandering had skewed voter sentiment here. Throughout that decade, Democratic majorities in the Legislature significantly exceeded the percentage of the combined Democratic vote in legislative races.

Both campaigns in the 26th Congressional District race, as was revealed on their expenditure reports, spent a lot of money on polling. But, unfortunately for someone whose job is to publicly report political information, both camps were extremely tight-lipped about what their polling revealed.

But there was one notable exception: Back in July, the campaign of Julia Brownley released a memo detailing the highlights of a poll conducted by Ben Tulchin and Ben Krompak of the firm Tulchin Research.

I reported on its findings at the time, then took the polling memo and tucked it inside my calendar on the page for this week. I thought it would be interesting to check how accurately it reflected the actual voter sentiment that would be expressed on Election Day.

It turns out that Tulchin's poll was dead-on accurate. It showed Brownley leading Republican Tony Strickland by 4 percentage points. And the actual result in November: With a few votes yet to be counted, Brownley beat Strickland by exactly 4 percentage points, 52 percent to 48 percent. The same poll indicated that Barack Obama would carry the district by 5 percentage points; it looks like the actual outcome will show that he won it by about 7 points.

Last week, since I received them before he did, I shared with Brownley strategist Lenny Young the vote breakdown in the district's two largest cities, Oxnard and Thousand Oaks. He had told me earlier that day that he believed Tulchin's polling, which drilled down into measuring voter sentiment even at the city level, had been right on the money. After I sent him the actual numbers, he sent a reply that still did not reveal the details of the campaign's pre-election polling, but did note that, "Ben Tulchin is indeed a very good pollster."

On the other hand, I had been led to believe during the campaign that the Strickland camp felt its polling showed him to be ahead. At one point over the summer, they acknowledged as much, without providing any details. In his remarks at a Westlake Village fundraiser with House Majority Leader .Eric Cantor two weeks before the election, Strickland told his supporters that his polling showed him with a sizeable lead among independents (I was able to obtain a tape-recording of those remarks).

Reporting on political campaigns puts a reporter in a unique position. You get to know the candidates and their political staff fairly well, you develop a high level of interest in the campaign and yet, unlike everyone else involved, you don't care who wins. As a consequence, after the election is over you generally feel badly for those who have invested so much time and energy into the effort but fell short.

I always feel particularly badly for those candidates who lost when they genuinely believed, based on their polling, that they were going to win (as appears to have been the case with Mitt Romney). My guess is that Strickland fell into that category.

Polling is not an easy science. People don't particularly like to answer their phones; you have to objectively and artfully frame your questions; you have to get an appropriate mix of people over both landlines and cell phones; in a district like this, you have to sample an appropriate number of people using bilingual or Spanish-language personnel. You have to train and rely on polltakers who are not always particularly well paid or educated. You have to made good evaluations as to who is likely to vote and who is not. You have to make educated estimates about what the partisan make-up of the actual electorate will be. It ain't easy.

But the value of good polling is immense. And in this campaign, it appears that one camp had some very good polling to guide its decisions about how and where to devote its resources.

THE ELECTION'S COASTAL CONSEQUENCES: By now it's been widely reported that this election year was not a good one for Republicans in the California state Senate. Between redistricting and election outcomes, they lost three seats, which gives Democrats a 28-12 advantage, and two-thirds majority control with a seat to spare.

But what's not been remarked upon is that while Republicans lost ground all over, they nearly surrendered the coast.

When the Senate adjourned in August, there were 16 districts that touched upon either the Pacific Ocean or the San Francisco Bay. Of those, five, or nearly a third, were held by Republicans. When it reconvenes next month, there will be 17 such coastal districts -- and only two will be held by Republicans.

In fact, there will be just one, 72-mile stretch of California's 840 miles of coastline that will have GOP representation in the Senate. That stretch runs from Huntington Beach down to Cardiff, and encompasses coastal Orange County (Newport Beach, Laguna Beach) and northern San Diego County (Oceanside, Carlsbad). That stretch includes the 36th District, represented by Sen. Joel Anderson, and the 37th District, represented by Sen. Mimi Walters.

Redistricting detached Del Norte County at the northernmost tip of California coastline from its conservative inland neighbors in the north state, taking that out of a safely Republican district that had been held by Republican Doug LaMalfa.. Redistricting also converted the district of San Luis Obispo Republican Sen. Sam Blakeslee into one so safely Democratic that he chose not to even try to seek re-election. He will be replaced for former Assemblyman Bill Monning of Santa Cruz, a Democrat. The new 19th District, which takes in coastal Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, will now be represented by Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson instead of Republican Tony Strickland. Also gone from the Senate Republicans' coastal caucus are the termed-out Tom Harman (replaced by Rod Wright in what is now the safely Democratic 35th District) and Mark Wyland (whose 38th District was redrawn as an inland district).

MORE STREET-LEVEL MUSCLE IN THE 26th CD: In my post-election reporting on the outcome in the 26th Congressional District contest won by Democrat Julia Brownley, I cited the grass-roots, voter-mobilization of efforts of CAUSE, the Brownley campaign and the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee.

Left out of that equation was the work of the Tri-Counties Central Labor Council, which was part of the California Labor Federation's impressive statewide voter-mobilization effort. The Tri-Counties Council's activities, led by Marilyn Valenzuela, had a budget of $200,000, walked 625 precincts, made more than 80,000 phone calls, and hung 34,000 doorhangers. On the final Saturday before the election, about 120 people spread out walking the streets of Ventura after having gathered that morning at the IBEW office.

FOX NEWS, THE PRINT EDITION?: It was evident on election night that many of the pundits and commentators on Fox News seemed genuinely surprised, and somewhat in denial, about the results that were coming in on the presidential election. Newspaper readers in San Diego must have been experiencing the same feelings.

In what has been a heartbreaking turn of events for those who appreciate solid, objective journalism, the new owner of the renamed San Diego newspaper, now called U-T San Diego, has converted that publication into an early 20th century-style partisan propaganda machine. Owner "Papa Doug" Manchester published a front-page editorial endorsing Republican Carl DeMaio for mayor.

That was unusual because most newspapers abandoned front-page editorials decades ago, deciding instead to limit opinions to their editorial pages. Still, the front-page editorial was labeled that, and was clearly an expression of opinion. Far more troubling is a report from KPBS yesterday that indicates the newspaper commissioned a poll that was intentionally designed to produce a misleading result.

San Deigans who relied on their daily newspaper to inform them on the state of the mayor's race were led to believe that DeMaio held a 10-point lead going into the election. Many must have been shocked -- and felt that their trust in the newspaper had been betrayed -- when Democrat Bob Filner won a narrow victory.

Journalist Bill Bishop's 2008 book, "The Big Sort," detailed how Americans have self-segregated themselves into like-minded communities, and how that phenomenon has made it very difficult to create political districts that encourage moderation or compromise. He subtitled the book, "Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart."

Even so, California's independent redistricting process enabled this state to produce a few districts that are genuinely competitive -- not because they are politically moderate, but because they encompass multiple communities in which the sorting by education, income, ethnicity and other factors has produced conflicting political results. That is the case with Ventura County's 26th Congressional District. It is a competitive district not because it is politically moderate, but because it is politically schizophrenic.

I wrote yesterday about the city-by-city results, and how they show the extreme differences among communities within Ventura County. But on a micro level, the sorting is even more extreme.

Poring through precinct-by-precinct results I came upon a few that stand out for their political homogeneity.

Consider two precincts in Downtown Oxnard that encompass homes and apartments on A, B and C Streets. In precinct 4342, Democrat Julia Brownley beat Republican Tony Strickland 745-158, or with 85 percent of the vote. In neighboring precinct 4361, Brownley won 406-58, which was an even bigger landslide, with 87.5 percent.

Meanwhile, up in the residential palaces around Lake Sherwood, at precinct 7050, Strickland trounced Brownley 563-180, winning 76 percent of the vote.

This is the polarized political world in which we live. Is it really any wonder why our elected representatives have problems with the concept of compromise?

VOTE TURNOUT IN CALIFORNIA: Based on results reported thus far, plus the number of unprocessed ballots reported this morning by the secretary of state, it appears turnout in California will exactly match the turnout predicted last week by the Field Poll: 70 percent (or 70.2 percent, to be precise).

That's a significant dropoff from four years ago, when turnout was nearly 10 points higher. But it roughly matches the turnout from 2000 and is significantly than 1996's paltry 65.5 percent.

By the way, there are 3.3 million ballots yets to be counted -- almost, but not quite as many as the 3.7 million ballots already counted that were cast for Mitt Romney.

The key to winning in any political campaign is for a candidate to maximize his or her base of support while holding down the other in his base. The 26th Congressional District was no exception. An analysis of city-by-city vote results from Tuesday shows that Democrat Julia Brownley did the best job of accomplishing that objective -- which is why she defeated Republican Tony Strickland.

(A complete city-by-city breakdown is at the end of this post.)

Brownley really ran up the score in Oxnard, winning that city 66 percent to 34 percent in the final unofficial vote count. That 32-point difference was four points better than the city's Democratic voter registration advantage of 28 percent, meaning that Brownley solidly held the city's Democratic base and won a sizeable majority of independents.

Oxnard voters provided Brownley with her entire margin of victory and then some. She carried Oxnard by 12,360 votes; she won districtwide by 7,099.

Meanwhile, in Thousand Oaks, Strickland underperformed the Republican voter registration advantage, winning 54 percent to 46 percent. That 8-point margin is 2 points less than the city's 10-point GOP registration edge -- which means Brownley likely picked up a fairly good number of Republican crossover votes.

Strickland always knew that this would be a tough district for any Republican, and his polling months ago told him that he would need to outperform GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the district. He accomplished that, but not by nearly enough. Barack Obama carried the Ventura County portion of the district 54 percent to 46 percent. Strickland did slightly better, losing by four points rather than six.

The results from Thousand Oaks show that there was no "Linda Parks effect" dragging down Brownley in the supervisor's hometown. Some observers had speculated that there could be lingering hard feelings against Brownley left over from the primary, when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee unfairly trashed Parks, who ran as independent, in hamhanded mailers that voters familiar with Parks found to be offensive.

In fact, the numbers suggest that if there was a "Parks effect," it worked to Strickland's disadvantage. Perhaps there were some residual negative feelings about the Strickland name two years after the candidate's wife, Audra, challenged Parks in her campaign for re-election to the Board of Supervisors. For whatever reason, Strickland clearly underperformed in Thousand Oaks.

Following are the city-by-city percentage breakdowns:
(Brownley percentage - Strickland percentage)
Camarillo -- 44-56
Fillmore -- 55-45
Moorpark -- 46-54
Ojai -- 62-38
Oxnard -- 66-34
Port Hueneme -- 63-37
Santa Paula -- 59-41
Simi Valley (small portion of city) -- 47-53
Thousand Oaks -- 46-54
Ventura -- 53-47

From the outset, the motivation of the sponsors of Proposition 32 was an open question. Did they put it on the ballot because they really thought it had a chance of winning, or did they put it there to force California labor unions to spend tens of millions of dollars to defeat it, diluting the financial resources that would otherwise be available for other contests?

I think the latter scenario is more plausible. But if that was the strategy, it backfired -- and it backfired because the only political tactic the sponsors of Proposition 32 understand is spending money to purchase TV and radio advertising, send mail, buy slate cards and make robocalls to voters.

A few wealthy interests are never going to have a ground game. Their opponents did.

The presence of Proposition 32 on the ballot triggered a mobilization effort that not only defeated the initiative but also helped to pass Proposition 30 and contributed to Democratic gains of 4 seats in the House delegation, 3 seats in the Senate and 2 in the Assembly (assuming leads in too-close-to-call elections hold up; it's not likely all will).

Here's the labor mobilization box score from the California Labor Federation's communications director Steve Smith: "Over the course of the campaign, 40,000 union volunteers made more than 3.7 million direct voter contacts on the phone and at the door. More than 1 million contacts were made as part of the final GOTV push in the last week. Union volunteers distributed 5.1 million fliers at worksites and door steps. This massive effort began in the spring, much earlier than we've ever kicked off a ground effort than before. Every evening and weekend for months, working people volunteered in record numbers to educate voters about the stakes in this election."

Some observations over breakfast...

STEVE BENNETT IS OFF THE HOOK: Supervisor Steve Bennett had two things on the line last night -- his own re-election and the wrath of county Democrats had Republican Tony Strickland prevailed in the 26th Congressional District.

Bennett's Hamlet-like indecision over the question of whether to run for Congress last winter -- he was in, then maybe he was out, then he was back in, then at the very last minute he was out for good -- forced Julia Brownley to begin her campaign two months behind schedule, a million dollars in the hole and without the ability to consolidate support to a level that might have persuaded other Democrats in the primary to withdraw.

Had Brownley lost in a district that was clearly Democrats' for the taking, Bennett would have appropriately taken much of the blame. His indecision probably did have one lasting consequence, however: It surely played a role in reducing his margin of victory Tuesday night, when he was re-elected in what was the closest contest of his political career.

GORELL'S CHALLENGE: Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, the big Republican winner in the county last night, will go to Sacramento this week for GOP Caucus meetings with a significant load on his shoulders. He is the person in charge of outreach for the Assembly Republicans, and beginning next year they will have to reach out as they never have before if they want any chance at regaining relevancy in the California Capitol.

It now appears that Democrats have taken two-thirds majority control of both houses of the Legislature.

With statewide Republican voter registration now at below 30 percent, GOP lawmakers will have to figure out a way to change their messaging or change their approach to their jobs in some way, or else risk long-term status as little more than political curiosities in Sacramento.

Gorell is now one of his party's few stars -- someone who won in a Democratic-leaning district, and someone who takes a get-things-done approach to the job and eschews ideological bombast. He is a potential statewide candidate, but unless Republicans move quickly to reshape their image in California, being a GOP statewide nominee in California will be nothing more than a novelty prize.

IF YOU SEE A SENATOR, CALL HER MA'AM: After Tuesday night, the four senators who represent Ventura County in the state and national legislatures are all Democratic women. Hannah-Beth Jackson joins Fran Pavley at the state level, and Dianne Feinstein will rejoin joins Barbara Boxer in Washington for another six-year term.

A few things to keep in mind for those who are monitoring election returns in Ventura County and statewide tonight:

-- In close races, the result won't be known for perhaps weeks. Counties have until Dec. 7 to certify the results. About 20 percent of the total vote will remain outstanding even after the last report is issued around midnight. These will mostly be late-arriving mail-in votes, and it will be several days -- perhaps until next week -- until elections officials even begin to start processing them. The 2008 cliffhanger between Tony Strickland and Hannah-Beth Jackson until late November.

-- Don't read too much into the first batch of results, which are all vote-by-mail ballots. Those votes have a slight Republican tilt, as a relatively higher percentage of Democrats vote at polling places on Election Day, and those results start to trickle in later.

-- Know how many total votes to expect. To get a rough handle on how many votes remain to be counted at any given point, assume a 70 percent turnout rate (it will be plus or minus a couple points of that). Assuming a 70 percent turnout, here's how many total votes to expect in the races most folks will be watching:
-- 26th Congressional District: 250,985 votes (70 percent of total registration)
-- 27th Senate District: 376,158 votes.

-- in statewide races on the ballot propositions, the same precautions exist. In addition, there is the fact that, traditionally, Los Angeles County is the last county to complete its tally. In the case of Proposition 30, that would likely mean an end-of-the-night increase in support. The opposite will be true for Proposition 32. Most of the other propositions of interest, such as Propositions 34 and 37, don't have such a partisan tilt, so the end-of-night trends will be more difficult to predict.

Polls are open for 10 more hours...

THE WORST AD? -- Supervisor Linda Parks and her partners at HonestyCounts.org have been deconstructing dozens of local political mailers and ads this fall, in many cases debunking the claims that they make.

I'm going to give "95 percent accurate*" readers the benefit of the doubt and assume they've already voted. If not, stop right here. If so, then go ahead and participate in another election -- HonestyCount.org's voting to determine which of this year's sleazy hit pieces will be inducted into the website's notorious Hall of Shame.

Given that combined spending in the 26th Congressional District and 27th Senate District will likely top $14 million, there are plenty of nominees to choose from.

What is it that we're all supposed to do tomorrow?

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM SPEAKS: Scott Lay of the AroundtheCapitol.com website that tracks campaign financing and all things political in Sacramento today released the results of his election contest that surveyed 400 Sacramento political insiders for their predictions on Tuesday's outcomes in state races.

Lay says the respondents represent "an impressive and bipartisan group of California policy and political leaders." Still, given that he asked questions about dozens of different districts from every corner of the state, it's impossible to say how many respondents were just plain guessing or basing their predictions simply on voter-registration numbers and how many may have actually had some inside knowledge based on internal polling results.

All that said, here's what how the 400 respondents picked the outcome of Ventura County's two ultra-competitive contests:

27th Senate District: 90.6 percent picked incumbent Democrat Fran Pavley over Republican Todd Zink.

26th Congressional District: 65.1 percent picked Democrat Julia Brownley over Republican Tony Strickland.

There is one race in the state in which the conventional wisdom is split right down the middle. In the Sacramento area's 7th Congressional District, 50.4 percent of respondents picked Democrat Ami Bera, while 49.6 percent picked Republican incumbent Dan Lungren.

REGISTRATION CHANGES SINCE PRIMARY: Also from AroundtheCapitol.com, it published an analysis of district-by-district registration changes in political districts since May. As is usually the case, Democrats, who tend to move more frequently, gained the most voters across the board as the result of pre-presidential election registration activity.

Among the local districts, the most striking Democratic gains were in the 27th Senate District, where Democratic registration picked up by 9.7 percent compared to a 3.2 percent increase in registered Republicans -- a net 6.5 percent gain, or a 14,000-voter increase in the Democratic margin.

One of the smaller gains was in the 26th Congressional District -- a net 1.6 percent gain for Democrats.

ANOTHER CHRYSTAL BALL: I noted here Friday that the Rothenberg Report contunies to rate the 26th Congressional District as a "pure toss-up." The final rating of the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato, publisher of the noted congressional analysis called "Sabato's Cyrstal Ball," ranks both the 24th and 26th Congressional Districts as "leans Democrat."

THE SUPER PAC TALLY: As of today, total super PAC and other independent interest group spending in the 26th Congressional District is $4.2 million, the Center for Responsive Government reports. That ranks it 38th in the country.

A few places below that on the list is the 24th Congressional District, checking in at $3.3 million.

Less that 40 hours until polling places open...

POST-HALLOWEEN TRICKERY: Many campaigns save their sleaziest stuff for the last three days, when it's too late to be completely held accountable. Here's some of what I've picked up on in the last couple days:

-- A phony slate card went out to Democratic voters in Ventura County that listed most of the expected candidates -- which is to say, Democrats -- but also two others: Republican Assembly candidate Jeff Gorell and Republican candidate for supervisor Bob Roper. These slate cards are nothing more than pay-to-play propaganda in which the mailer lists endorsements for whatever candidates of causes that pay him money.

In this case, there was a pretty good tip-off about where some of the money was coming from. It recommended a Yes vote on Proposition 33 and a No vote on Proposition 37 -- the opposite positions of the county Democratic Party. Mercury General Insurance executives and the seed industry have throwing money around like water to pass 33 and defeat 37.

County Democratic Chairman David Atkins sent out this alert today: "You may have gotten a flimsy WHITE thin paper slate today claiming to be a Democratic voter guide. It's a fraud. Roper and Gorell are conservative Republicans. Ventura Democrats support Prop. 37 and oppose Prop. 33. For our actual endorsements, please visit VenturaCountyDemocrats.com. IF IT'S BLUE, IT'S LEGIT. IF IT'S WHITE, IT'S NOT."

-- Democratic Sen. Fran Pavley's campaign has reprised an unsubstantiated claim about Republican challenger Todd Zink. I wrote here a couple weeks ago .about a Democratic Party mailer that overstated Zink's position on abortion. Its assertion that he opposes abortion even to protect the life or health of the mother was based on a story I wrote in May that didn't say that. The story was silent on that issue, but did report Zink's belief that abortion should be banned except in cases in which a woman becomes pregnant because rape or incest.

Now the Pavley campaign has repeated that baseless claim in a mailer of its own. In response, the Zink campaign noted that I had concluded the first mailer was misleading, and released a statement that reads in part:

"The second false mailer exemplifies Pavley's lack of ethics and unabashed attempts to mislead voters. Although the Zink campaign is troubled by the allegations, it is not surprised that Senator Pavley has resorted to such political games."

-- Phone calls that make false claims this time of year and are virtually impossible to substantiate. Here's the only one that anyone has passed along to me so far: A call placed to voters with Spanish surnames in which a voice with a Mexican accent tells those who answer that Zink is a Democrat.

WERE YOU EXPECTING A CALL FROM BILL CLINTON?: A number of voters in the 26th Congressional District got just a call today, and here's what the former president had to say:

"Hello, this is President Bill Clinton calling to urge you to vote for my friend Julia Brownley for Congress.

Ever since her days in the PTA, Julia's been a crusader for California schools, ensuring our kids have the opportunity to achieve greatness. She's the only candidate in the race who will stand up for women's rights and freedoms. We can trust Julia to fight for access to birth control and a woman's right to choose. She'll always side with the middle class, and President Obama needs her as a partner.

I hope you'll vote for Julia Brownley for Congress this Tuesday, November 6."

STATE SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER TO BE IN TOWN: The Zink campaign tells that California Senate Republican leader Bob Huff will be in Thousand Oaks today working with volunteers doing phone-banking.

Get ready for a crazy weekend of GOTV...

CALLING IT JUST A 'TILT': The Rothenberg Report, which analyzes congressional districts across the country, today moved the Central Coast's 24th Congressional District from "leans Democrat" to "toss-up/tilt Democrat."

Here's the Rothenberg analysis:

"Republican polls have had this as a dead heat between Rep. Lois Capps (D) and former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado (R) for some time, but we've remained skeptical. Still, this is a market, unlike Sacramento, where the GOP and their allies can still buy time, and they have been outspending Capps by more than two to one in the last couple of weeks. Capps remains a slight favorite, and Maldonado still carries high negatives, but this may be Republicans' best opportunity to knock off a Democratic incumbent in the Golden State."

As for Ventura County's 26th Congressional District race between Democrat Julia Brownley and Republican Tony Strickland, it remains one of just 18 across the country that Rothenberg classifies as a "pure toss-up."

OLD-FASHIONED POLITICKING: Democrats will stage a couple of old-fashioned political rallies in Ventura County this weekend to stir up some election eve excitement. The first will be at Oxnard's Plaza Park at 9 Saturday morning, and the second at Downtown Ventura's Plaza Park at 3:30 Sunday afternoon.

Originally, Democrats were hoping that Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis would attend, but she was forced to cancel her scheduled trip to the West Coast on Friday.

90,200 VOTES IN THE BANK: Political Data Inc. reports that 90,200 vote-by-mail ballots in Ventura County had been returned as of this morning, or 43 percent of the vote-by-mail ballots issued. Since almost half, 49 percent to be precise, of county voters are mail voters, that means the turnout rate in Ventura County is already at 21.5 percent.

POST-ELECTION ANALYSIS: Cal State Channel Islands political science professor Scott Frisch, noted for his scholarly work on all things congressional, will provide a post-election analysis of election results on Wednesday at the Democratic Club of the Conejo Valley's 6:30 meeting at the Newbury Park Library, 2331 Borchard Road.

COULD BE A BLOWOUT: A couple months ago, Republicans in Sacramento were making noise about the possibility that the 19th Senate District could be a competitive race. But funding for GOP candidate Mike Stoker has not materialized, and a big voter-registration push in Santa Barbara County has widened the voter-registration gap in that district to 12 points.

It's beginning to appear that contest could be a fairly easy win for Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson.

If today would have been a Monday, tomorrow would be Election Day....

THE DEMOCRAT STANDING FOR STRICKLAND: A "my friend Julia" fundraising email from former President Bill Clinton went out this morning, seeking last-minute online contributions to support Democrat Julia Brownley in Ventura County's 26th Congressional District race.

And that got me to thinking. Republican Tony Strickland is running a "real people" campaign in which he mostly features ordinary folks providing testimonials for him. Brownley, on the other hand, is touting a lot of political endorsements, including that of Clinton. There is one exception, however: Strickland has been featuring former Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra of Bakersfield in much of his campaign material, citing her support as evidence that he is someone who can reach across the aisle.

If you've seen that, and you're like 99 percent of Ventura County voters, you may have wondered, "Who is this woman?"

Here's a little background. Parra was a Democratic member of the Assembly for six years back in the early 2000s. She was last heard from, politically speaking, when she endorsed a Republican in the campaign to replace her after she was termed out. Most observers in Bakersfield attributed that decision to a long-running family feud between Parra's family and that of former state Sen. Dean Florez. The Parra family had held hard feelings ever since an ally of Florez defeated Nicole's father for Kern County supervisor. Parra's endorsement in the Assembly race may have evened the score somewhat, because the Democratic candidate that year was Florez' mother.

Strickland, by the way, hasn't always been a huge fan of Parra. Back in 2004, Strickland formed a political advocacy organization called the California Club for Growth. Its only major campaign activity that fall was to fund a $65,000 independent expenditure attack against -- that's right -- Nicole Parra.

PROP. 30 CAMPAIGN FINISHING WITH A FLURRY: With polls showing voter sentiment on Proposition 30 closely divided, hovering around the 50 percent mark, its supporters are staging quite a ground-game blitz in the final days of the campaign. Some examples:

-- Gov Jerry Brown today announced the launch of an online tool that allows registered voters anywhere in California to find their polling places and retrieve a map of how to get there. All they have to do is enter their address.

Brown is clearly cognizant of polling that shows which demographic groups are most likely to support Prop. 30 -- young voters and Latinos.

Consider what he wrote in an email promoting the tool: "It's optimized to work on smartphones and tablets as well as desktop and laptop computers. And we have it in both English and Spanish."

-- California Federation of Teachers President Josh Pechthalt will join local labor groups and other supporters in Ventura on Saturday to walk precincts. The walkers will organize at the IBEW Hall, 3994 E. Main St.

-- Religious leaders have formed an unusual coaltion to back Prop. 30. They released a statement this week saying:

"Even as our economy begins its slow rebound from economic turmoil, we know that many Californians, especially those in our congregations and communities, are still reeling from the effects of the recession. The looming possibility that our schools and essential programs and services will be diminished even further is unacceptable."

Among those who signed were Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, Protestant ministers, Muslim imams and an Episcopalian bishop.

WHO ARE THE TOP SPECIAL INTERESTS IN SACRAMENTO?: The presence of Proposition 32 on the ballot, designed to severey reduce the political influence of labor unions, has triggered some natural discussion of who wields political muscle in Sacramento.

Yesterday, groups that employ lobbyists had to file financial reports covering the first three quarters of 2012. The editors at the Capitol Morning Report combed through them and came up with this list of the top 10 lobbying spenders:

1. Western States Petroleum Association -- $8.5 million
2. California Teachers Association -- $8.0 million
3. California State Council of Service Employees -- $7.9 million
4. California Chamber of Commerce -- $5.7 million
5. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan -- $5.3 million
6. Chevron -- $4.7 million
7. California Hospital Association -- $4.5 million
8. City of Vernon -- $4.2 million
9. California Manufacturers and Technology Association -- $4.0 million
10. Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association -- $3.9 million