Is The Gay Bay Going From Blue to Red?

Certainly not all of it, but there are signs of conservative life in the liberal bastion of California (from Uncoverage):

David Harmer, the National Republican party’s banner logo candidate to flip a seat in the all-blue San Francisco Congressional delegation, has blanketed the airwaves with ads of late, and suddenly has a six point lead over his Democratic incumbent.

SurveyUSA/KCBS 5 poll:

David Harmer (R) 48%

Jerry McNerney (D) 42 %

Harmer’s district is CA-CD-11, which is gerrymandered from the East Bay over to Stockton. His bid is given the most chance for success because of the nearly 50-50 split of registered Republicans and Democrats.

Focusing only on the Dave Harmer race in Northern California may be missing the bigger story. It could be that the traditionally “blue” San Francisco Bay area is going “purple” or even “red” in a few other districts. It is difficult to tell because of the lack of news media coverage by the major newspapers, or minimal coverage. Many of the GOP hopefuls are sadly-underfunded compared to their Democrat incumbents. Polls for them are scarce, but volunteer and grassroots support for them appears very high.

Let me just revisit something I wrote about 10 days ago:

I've made nearly 30 trips to Northern California since August of 2007 so I've become quite accustomed to the liberal left slant of the place. Two years ago you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a Prius with an Obama/Biden sticker. This latest trip, however, was a bit of an eye-opener.

I must have seen dozens of signs along the roadway that said something along the lines of "throw the bums out". Some were small, some very large. There's an active Tea Party movement up in the North Bay.

There were also many bumperstickers with the same message - something that would have been unheard of two years ago. Cars bearing conservative messages were invitations for vandalism, but apparently those days are over. The conservatives are coming out of hiding and fearlessly proclaiming their message.

If the liberal left has lost support in the Gay Bay, they must be in real trouble everywhere else.

There may be some big surprises in these liberal districts on Nov. 2. The GOP probably won't win many of them, but if they win ANY of them and put a scare into the Dems in the rest of them it could prompt a surge of support for conservatives in the area.