By Stephen Golub, November 2, 2024

Many Benicians haven’t yet voted. So some final thoughts on two impressive candidates:

Christina Gilpin-Hayes for City Council

Democrat Gilpin-Hayes is a breath of fresh air and ideas. This includes extensive community engagement, innovative outreach to Benicians, responsibly backing revenue-enhancing ballot measures so our town won’t topple off the fiscal cliff and supporting a strong industrial safety ordinance (ISO). The ISO becomes all the more vital in view of the Valero refinery’s ongoing issues, as reflected by the $82 million fine just imposed for its sixteen years of egregious toxic emissions.

Gilpin-Hayes’s long list of endorsers includes Mayor Young, Vice Mayor Scott, Council Members Birdseye and Campbell, former Mayors Hayes and Patterson, the Solano County Democratic Party and numerous County Democratic officials and candidates.

Her main competition for the slot, Republican Lionel Largaespada, shares his opponent’s community engagement. But he has tight associations with Texas-based Valero, including backing its dangerous plan to bring potentially explosive “bomb trains” through town and its political action committees’ massive backing for him in previous races. He may well oppose an ISO and otherwise accommodate the oil giant.

He was the Council Member most resistant to the potentially life-saving mask mandate back when Covid raged. His opposition to the ballot’s revenue measures and his current dubious budget math, which could cut City services, have been rightly criticized by Council Member Campbell and other fiscally responsible Benicians.

So what can you do? Reach out to the Gilpin-Hayes campaign at its website (https://www.christinaforbenicia.com/) in case it needs last-minute help. Spread the word to neighbors and friends who may be undecided or lacking information.

Kamala Harris for President

You’ve doubtless been bombarded with presidential election information, so I’ll keep this selective. Over 800 Republicans, conservatives, retired generals and admirals and former national security officials and top Trump aides have endorsed Harris and denounced Trump. The nonpartisan CATO Institute just released a report revealing that supposedly “tough on immigration” Trump was far softer than Obama and Biden on thousands of violent criminals who’d illegally entered the country.

Here’s why Harris will win:

Women far outnumber men in early voting, by a 10 percent margin, unnerving even leading Trump supporters. This could prove crucial, given the gender gap in candidate support, with females tending to back Harris and males favoring Trump.

A recent Gallup poll found that more Democrats (77 percent) are enthusiastic about voting than Republicans (67 percent) are.

Harris has a more proven and organized get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation than Trump does, a phenomenon I witnessed during my recent canvassing in Pennsylvania.

Harris may benefit from an independent political action committee pouring up to $700 million into ads and messages in these closing weeks, based on its unprecedented (but admittedly unproven) rigorous testing process.

A comedian slamming Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s recent New York rally is infuriating Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania (which has almost 300,000) and elsewhere.

On the other hand, Trump’s own tactics could prove effective. His anger-inducing blame game could outweigh Harris’s GOTV ground game. But I’m betting on Kamala.

So what can you do? These final days are vital. Go to the Harris campaign’s volunteer site, https://go.kamalaharris.com/, particularly to sign up to call swing state voters. I just made such calls; it’s far easier than the site makes it look. Even one persuaded or mobilized pro-Harris voter per two-hour shift can prove crucial when multiplied by volunteers’ millions of calls.

Finally: Please also vote for Mayor Young, Council Member Macenski and revenue Measures F, G and H. And let’s hope that Election Day and the following days prove peaceful.