New campaign filing reports show Santa Barbara’s Congressmember Salud Carbajal raised just shy of $1 million in the first half of 2017. That’s more than both Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, who brought in $724,000 and $927,000, respectively.
Carbajal spent just a fraction of that $1 million, bringing his total cash on hand to about $868,000. Republicans, however, are already spending. The National Republican Congressional Committee recently released a string of digital video ads attacking five Democrats — including Carbajal — for voting against a bill to accelerate permits for water storage projects, which passed along mostly party lines.
But the 24th Congressional District might be a “very long shot” for Republicans, according to a recent report by the nonpartisan California Target Book. Though the Democratic registration advantage is a “modest” 8 percentage points, the report emphasized that the Central Coast’s “support for the advisory measure to overturn Citizens United, the ban on single-use plastic bags and repeal of the death penalty exceeded the statewide levels.”