Assemblyman Levine concedes in long-shot bid for Insurance Commissioner post

Assemblyman Marc Levine on Wednesday conceded in his long-shot bid to unseat California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.

Levine, a San Rafael Democrat who has represented Marin and southern Sonoma counties after his election in 2012, wrote on Facebook that he could not make up the 6,420 votes as of Wednesday afternoon that had him behind Republican Robert Howell, who trailed Lara in the June 7 primary.

Howell had 1,210,981 votes, or 18.1% of the total, while Levine was at 1,204,561 votes representing 18.0% of the ballots counted from the election, according to the California Secretary of State’s office. Lara had 2,406,926 votes, or 35.9%.

Levine wrote that “there simply aren’t enough uncounted ballots left to change the outcome of the election.”

Ten years ago, Levine was the surprise victor in a Democrat-on-Democrat runoff against Michael Allen, the assistant majority leader, for the North Bay seat in the Assembly.

Levine announced his run for the insurance commissioner post last September with a focus on campaign finance issues that have dogged fellow Democrat Lara since he was elected in 2018 after serving in the state Senate. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in May that Lara was a subject of a probe by the California Fair Political Practices Commission over whether insurance industry donations were being diverted to independent groups to support his reelection.

But with the power of incumbency, Lara secured the endorsements from the vast majority of Democratic politicians in the state that included local state Sens. Bill Dodd, of Napa, and Mike McGuire, of Healdsburg. Levine’s campaign never took off outside of endorsements from the editorial pages of newspapers across the state and he noted in his post Wednesday that the “race was always going to be an uphill battle.”

Meanwhile, the contest to replace Levine in the Assembly will likely be one of the most competitive local races on the November ballot. The District 12 contest pits Damon Connolly, a former San Rafael councilman and current member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, against Marin County lawyer and environmental activist Sara Aminzadeh, a member of the state Coastal Commission.

Connolly won the June primary by only 1,318 votes, or a margin of 0.9%. Steve Schwartz, a Sonoma County resident and organic farmer who placed third in the race, has endorsed Aminzadeh.

Sonoma County voters could be a decisive factor in the fall election given they outnumber those from Marin. Aminzadeh won Sonoma County in the primary with 37.6% of the vote to Connolly’s 29.2%.