Republican Beth Gaines has won the election to fill her husband's former Assembly seat.
Gaines was ahead of Roseville Democrat Dennis Campanale in Tuesday's runoff election for the 4th Assembly District, leading 55 percent to 45 percent, with 90 percent of precincts reporting.
The two emerged as the top vote-getters in an eight-way March primary election triggered by the January election of her husband, Ted Gaines, to an overlapping state Senate seat.
While Gaines edged out her closest GOP rival by just one percentage point in the primary, she was considered the clear front-runner in this round of balloting.
Campanale, a retired firefighter, raised and spent less than $5,000 on his campaign - not nearly enough to counter Gaines' higher profile and Republicans' double-digit voter registration edge in the district, which includes Alpine County and parts of Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento counties.
The matchup resulted in a low-key runoff contest, save for a last-minute mail blitz by a labor-backed campaign committee. The committee, which is funded in part by a firefighters' union backing Campanale, reported spending nearly $40,000 to mail voters' pamphlets in the final weekend of the campaign. The mail attacked Gaines' positions on the state budget.
Gaines, who says she works as a marketing consultant for the family insurance business, made economic recovery and creating a better climate for businesses the central themes of her campaign.
She supports a cuts-based approach to solving the state's projected $15.4 billion budget deficit and has vowed to oppose Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to ask voters to approve continuing higher income, sales and vehicle tax rates.
Gaines' swearing-in will mark the first time since late 2008 that there are no vacancies in the state Legislature.
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Call Torey Van Oot, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5544.
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