Damon Connolly recaps win in race for Assembly seat representing North Bay

The second time around for political rivals Damon Connolly and Sara Aminzadeh, it wasn’t as close.

The Marin County Democrats faced off in one of the North Bay’s most closely watched Nov. 8 races, to determine which of them would represent California’s recently redrawn 12th Assembly District, which includes all of Marin and part of Sonoma County.

After edging Aminzadeh, a member of California’s Coastal Commission, by less than single percentage point in last June’s primary, Connolly, a Marin County supervisor, knew he was in for a pitched battle.

But when the preliminary results came in Tuesday night, the margin wasn’t nearly as tight. Connolly had jumped out to a 9-point lead, 54.6% to Aminzadeh’s 45.4%.

Though thousands of ballots remain to be counted in the two-county race, Aminzadeh, acknowledged her fading prospects and conceded Wednesday evening, issuing a statement that Connolly “will likely be our next Assemblymember.”

On Thursday morning, Connolly agreed with that assessment, telling The Press Democrat, “With the initial results in, we believe we are strongly positioned to win the race.”

Aminzadeh did not respond Thursday to requests for comment.

Asked what had happened between June and November, Connolly, of San Rafael, laughed and referred to the many miles he’d put in traveling up and down Highway 101.

“We put a lot of work into Sonoma County,” he said.

A former California Deputy Attorney General who got his start in politics as a school board member, Connolly then spent seven years on the San Rafael City Council. Elected to Marin’s Board of Supervisors in 2014, he won a second term in 2018.

He is a familiar, connected figure in Marin County, his power base. But he was against a formidable opponent focused on the singular goal, as Aminzadeh put it in her concession statement, of accelerating “climate action” and “leaving our children a livable planet.”

So Connolly needed to range further north and court a new region of voters.

Following the June primary election, he vowed to spend “part of every day in Sonoma County,” said Connolly. “And except for about 10 days, I did that. I got to know that stretch of (Highway) 101 quite well.”

Whether it was Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Cotati, south Santa Rosa — the northern boundary of the district — the Sonoma Valley, or any number of places in between, “We saw this as an opportunity to meet people at their doors, and at events, to learn about the issues impacting them” — and share with them his priorities, including wildfire prevention, addressing drought and the climate crisis, sustainable agriculture, housing, homelessness and mental health, Connolly said.

Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers, a friend of Connolly’s, had described the contest this way: Aminzadeh is “an exciting candidate, she’s passionate,” said Rogers. “Damon has more experience. That’s the way this race has shaped up.”

Aminzadeh wrangled an impressive list of endorsements for an insurgent campaign, including support from North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman and plugs from U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, First Partner of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and actress and activist Jane Fonda.

Not surprisingly, considering his years in local government, Connolly lined up more endorsements from within the district represented since 2013 by Marc Levine, who earlier this year came up short in his bid to unseat Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.

Supporting Connolly in the race were the North Bay Labor Council, the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, both the Marin and Sonoma County Farm bureaus, and four of the five members on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

It was that “broad coalition,” he concluded, that gave him the wider advantage over his opponent on election night.

Connolly acknowledged Thursday that a Republican-controlled House of Representatives will likely bring much of President Joe Biden’s agenda to a halt.

He sees that as an opportunity as one in the incoming class of lawmakers in the state Capitol.

The setback for Democrats in Washington, D.C., he said, increases the importance that California “acts boldly on the many issues we face” — including “climate action, reproductive rights, or democracy itself.

“I will be a voice for these issues in Sacramento,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.