With less than a week before voters will pick the top two runoff candidates for the California State Assembly 37th District, the California Real Estate Independent Expenditure Committee — California Association of Realtors has upped the ante on its attacks against Santa Barbara Mayor Cathy Murillo and Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett , having spent close to $700,000 on negative mailer ads alone.
Bennett and Murillo have raised the most money in their campaigns — nearly $500,000 combined — and are seen as the two most likely Democrats to snag a seat in the runoff and the least likely to vote in the Realtors’ interests. The gargantuan amount of dollars the independent expenditure committee is spending on the negative attack mailers is out of the ordinary for the 37th District, which is in the middle of its first competitive race in decades.
Real estate interest groups are drilling down hard because it’s also the first real chance for a pro-real estate candidate to take the seat. Jason Dominguez is seen as the most pro-business Democrat in the race, so the ads appear to be designed to help him by tearing down Murillo and Bennett.