Special Election - Fourth Assembly Seat - Cheryl Bly-Chester Is Running!

Cheryl Bly-Chester just called to announce she is running for the Fourth Assembly Seat in a Special Election to be held on March 8th! The Roseville Press-Tribune has an article:

Ted Gaines’ Senate District 1 win leaves the 4th Assembly District seat open, and several people are already thinking of filling it, including Gaines’ wife, Beth.

The California Secretary of State Office reported its semi-official special election results at 11 p.m. Tuesday. Gaines, R-Roseville, received 81,945 votes, or 63.2 percent of the vote, and Mayor Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, received 47,743 votes, or 36.8 percent of the vote.

The Placer County Office of Elections reported in its semi-official election night results that Gaines received 19,632 votes, or 63.35 percent of the vote in Placer County, and Cooley received 11,229 votes, or 36.23 percent of the vote. There were 130 write-in votes.

...Now several Assembly hopefuls are getting ready to gear up for their campaigns.

According to Dave Gilliard, Ted Gaines’ campaign consultant, Beth Gaines is seriously looking at running for the seat.

“I think you could expect a decision within a week,” Gilliard said Wednesday. “I would say she’s very excited about the possibility, but she’s not going to make any rash decisions. She wants to make sure she makes the right decision.”

...Auburn City Councilman Keith Nesbitt said he plans to make a decision by the end of this week on whether or not he will run.

“I am contemplating a run,” Nesbitt said. “I’m going to talk to a few more people, kind of gauge my support.”

...Republican John Allard II, who has been a Roseville city councilman for seven years, said he is throwing his hat into the ring.

“Yes, I absolutely am running for the 4th Assembly District,” Allard said.

...Auburn Councilman Kevin Hanley said he thought about running for the Assembly seat, but decided not to.

“I seriously considered it, but I’m not going to do it,” Hanley said. “I just ran for an election for City Council, and I kind of decided that Project Canyon Safe has two more years of hard work … by me and the Fire Safe Council.

The Roseville-area Fourth Assembly district is heavily-Republican, but Democrats have been doing better there in recent elections (not well enough to win, but better).

The Special Election is open: anyone can run, regardless of party affiliation.

At this moment, Cheryl has two other opponents: Beth Gaines (wife of Ted Gaines), and John Allard (staffer for Tim Leslie and veteran of the Roseville City Council). All three are Republicans. For this election, Cheryl will decline-to-state party affiliation on the ballot (the irony being, of course, that Cheryl is the most-active of the three candidates in local Republican Party politics). Other folks may yet run for the seat, however.

Cheryl needs donations, though (no war chest, and a snap election too). Send money!