He raised fees and taxes his whole time in office. He killed several economy building projects because of pressure from special interest groups. He brags about his city’s “Vision 2025” general plan, an Agenda 21-loaded scheme that was mandated by the State. He backed down to the ACLU and allowed his small city to go to districted council election, which has hurt competition for these important civic positions. Since then, virtually all candidates have run unopposed. I can go on and on. He did all this while running as Republican (granted in name only).

So why did I lose? Voter turnout.

In my first run in 2012, my district had a 71% voter turnout at the General Election. It was a referendum on Obama’s first term and it was Democrats vs Republicans in a battle for the White House. Republicans in particular turned out to vote in huge numbers.

Flash forward to this 2016 election this month, turnout dropped to under 35%. That drops over 4000 registered voters that did not vote that had previously.  Throughout the State, voters chose Democrats 2 to 1 to Republicans in the Presidential primary. The Democrats showed to duke it out between Sanders and Clinton, where Republicans, with Trump as the last man standing, had lost all their primary fervor.

Odds are me and my opponent split the Republican vote. But the push of Democrat, combined with his courting of teacher and police unions, shoved him into first place. If the voter turnout had been similar to the results of 2012, I likely would have won by a large margin.

This is my warning to Republicans. I know our electoral system has discouraged many voters from turning out in California because it seems like our conservative vote does not matter in State elections. Even when we do manage to squeak out a win, liberal Judges then throw out the rare conservative decision of the California people.

But in local elections, your vote matters! In the Fresno Bee my opponent was shocked that he won. So was I. So was every expert in the race. No one expected Republicans to be this apathetic – and local conservative candidates like me, and around the state paid the price by their absence.

NEVER sit out an election. Never never, never ever! It is a little known fact that Republicans dominate local elections even here in California, holding a majority of Supervisor and City Council seats throughout the state. But we depend on Republicans turning out to hold these seats. The other side from radical liberal activists to public sector unions are turning up the heat to take these local seats from conservatives and put Democrats or easily moldable moderates like my opponent in them. They have a mission to control California from the top down to its lowest levels.

And Republican voters help them when they don’t do their duty and vote.

There are still several important candidates and issues on the November ballot. Don’t make the same mistake twice. VOTE