Party registration, early voting currently favors Ballerini in EGUSD Area 6 race

Of the three competitive races for seats on the Elk Grove Unified School District Board of Trustees, the contest for the Area 6 seat is the only one that is a district based primarily in the city of Elk Grove. Jennifer Ballerini and Jacqueline Ortiz are competing to replace Trustee Nancy Chaires-Espinoza, who decided not to seek another four-year term.

As we have noted, even though local races in California are legally nonpartisan, the county Democratic and Republican parties have endorsed Ballerini and Ortzi, respectively. 

Early indications, assisted by information from Poltical Data Inc. combined with financial filings, show Ballerini to be in a stronger position to prevail in the two-candidate race. Let's look at some of the information that led to this assertion.

First, given the partisan nature of the race, Democratic registration in Area 6 is 15,073 compared to 6,331 Republican registrations and 9,550 independents.

For the sake of argument, let's say all of the 4,345 Democratic and 2,054 Republican ballots returned as of yesterday vote primarily along party lines. There is some crossover, but rather than make that calculation, voting of that nature works both ways and would cancel out one another.  

The next block of voters to consider is the 1,957 independent ballots returned. For the sake of discussion, let's say Ortiz sweeps this group.

If Ortiz sweeps all the independents and takes all the Republican ballots, she would have 4,011. Under our model, Ballerini would still lead the race with 4,345 if she lost the entire independent vote.

Other factors to consider. The outgoing trustee, Chaires-Espnoza, who held the seat for almost 10 years, endorsed Ballerini.

Most endorsements in local races are only meaningful if they involve cash donations. However, Chaires-Epsinoza is well-regarded, and her endorsement does have value with Area 6 voters.
Also, given that most of the district is Democratic, the partisan endorsement is often all that many voters need to make their selection in low-profile races. This favors Ballerini just because of the advantage of Democratic registrations.

From a financial standpoint, Ortiz is outperforming Ballerini. As of her last contributions report on October 19, Ortiz has received $26,022 in donations, mostly from individuals.

On October 27, the Elk Grove Education Association donated $9,500 to Ballerini. Before that, Ballerini received $19,731 in donations and $10,902 in non-monetary assistance from Elk Grove Education in various ways.  

Unlike Heidi Moore, the other Republican-endorsed EGUSD candidate in EGUSD Area 7, Ortiz has not received any contributions from the conservative-leaning Citizens for Accountable Local Government. That group has substantially supported Moore in her three-candidate race but has not involved itself in the Area 6 race. 

Ballot submittal continues until next Tuesday, and anything is possible. For Ortiz to overcome Ballerini's advantages, she must over-perform with independent voters and have high participation rates from Republicans.