Free Republic

John Fitzgerald and Virginia Fuller would seem to have little in common. He's a Democrat, she's a Republican. He's from Concord, she's from Pinole. He's a painting contractor, she's a registered nurse. Dig beneath the surface, though, and you will find two dreamers with the same ambition. They both are running for a seat in the House of Representatives, representing California's 11th District. That means ousting George Miller, who's held office for 38 years. Remember, we told you they were dreamers. Challenging Miller's stranglehold on a congressional seat is like trying to pry a ham shank from a German shepherd....

I just received this from the David Harmer (CA-11) campaign. He's running against Jerry McNerney. If you can help, please do. Limbo. That's where we find ourselves. As the votes were counted last night, we quickly jumped to a 3% lead and held it for most of the evening. As the number of precincts reporting increased, our lead gradually decreased, but we maintained it all through the night. As of 4:09 a.m. Pacific time, with 99% of the precincts reporting, we led by 23 votes (Harmer 81,762; McNerney 81,739). Then, in the "preliminary final count," the incumbent suddenly jumped ahead...

In the gerrymander-gone-awry California 11th congressional district, sprawling across four counties from Gilroy to Lodi, incumbent Democrat Jerry McNerney is ahead 121 votes to GOP challenger David Harmer: McNerney 82,124 votes, 47.5% Harmer 82,003 votes 47.4% A third party spoiler, Tracy's David Christensen of the conservative American Independent Party, has 8,809 or 5.1% That's with all precincts reporting as of 5:41 a.m. It would appear that Harmer would have won had Christensen not been in the race. . . .

CA House 11: Republican challenger David Harmer in a tight race to oust Democrat incumbent Jerry McNerney.

With just 72 hours until the polls close, the numbers are breaking for the Harmer campaign in a dramatically positive way. Last week, RealClearPolitics moved California’s 11th Congressional District into their “Leans GOP” column. This week, Larry Sabato, Director of the U.Va. Center for Politics, agreed, promoting California-11 from “Toss Up” to “Leans Republican” — the only congressional seat in California presently held by a Democrat to be so rated, and one of only two on the entire Pacific Coast. Now FiveThirtyEight, the New York Times election blog, gives David Harmer a 70% chance of winning on Tuesday, with incumbent...

The nationally targeted 11th Congressional District is generating tens of thousands of dollars in campaign ads and mailers, which predictably contain a mix of truth, distortion and outright falsehoods.The biggest flap centers on GOP nominee David Harmer's 11-year-old treatise on the ills of public schools and his advocacy for school vouchers.Harmer, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, wrote in a 2000 newspaper opinion piece, "So long as the state constitution mandates free public schools, a voucher system (or refundable tuition tax credit) is the best we can do. To attain quantum leaps in educational quality and opportunity, however, we...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Democratic incumbent in California's most reliably competitive congressional district appears to have a significant financial advantage leading up to the Nov. 2 election. Rep. Jerry McNerney, who represents Northern California's 11th Congressional District, had raised $700,000 during the past three months, leaving him with $1.4 million cash on hand, his campaign said Friday, the campaign-finance reporting deadline for U.S. Senate and House candidates. His Republican opponent, San Ramon attorney David Harmer, has reported more than $550,000 in donations between July 1 and Sept. 30. His campaign said it had $489,278 cash on hand. Last quarter, McNerney...

On the same day that Mexican President Felipe Calderon was schmoozing President Obama and Democratic members of Congress in Washington, another news story reported that “gun battles between security forces and armed attackers have killed nine people in two states along the U.S. border.” Since 1996, approximately 23,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico and along the U.S. border. In contrast, earlier this week news outlets reported that the number of U.S. military personnel who had died in nearly a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, since March 2001, reached nearly 5,400. There was a time when...