Over at Cafe San Diego

San Diego County Democratic Party Chair Jess Durfee, is hosting Cafe San Diego over at VOSD. His first post titled Turning Blue discusses how the county in slowly but surely trending blue. A couple of points he hits on are:

The city of San Diego has had a Democratic plurality of registered voters for many years. Countywide, the registration difference between the major parties is down to about 5 percent. That's vanishingly small when you consider the 22 percent of voters who don't affiliate with any party.

Last year, four of eight victorious Democratic candidates for statewide office carried San Diego County. That had never happened before. As those candidates were well aware, there are more Democratic votes here than in any other California county save Los Angeles.[Link]

In addition, he discusses some of the recent improvements the local party has undertaken:

Since the last presidential election, the county party has hired three full-time staff members (it previously had none), launched a year-round Precinct Leader program, successfully raised funds from high-dollar and grassroots donors alike, and adopted a strategic plan that emphasizes long-term candidate development.[Link]

As next year's presidential election grows closer, it will be interesting to see how these improvements to the local party combined with the changing demographics of the county translate into electoral outcomes.