Gov. Jerry Brown Wins Fourth Term

Update, 9:55 p.m.: Governor Jerry Brown is the first – and will likely be the only – man to win four terms as California’s chief executive.  But the Democrat celebrated that historic achievement Tuesday night with a low-key private dinner at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento.

No party. No cheering crowd. No balloons. Just Brown, accompanied by his wife Anne, addressing about a dozen reporters in front of the historic building’s front steps.

“Over the next four years, to the extent that I have the ability, the physical and the intellectual stamina and capacity, I’m going to do my upmost to live up to the promise of California,” Brown said in during his brief press conference.  “I don’t have any illusions about how easy it will be. It’s going to be quite challenging. …There’s lots of differences in points of view.”

What was easy: Brown’s reelection. He spent just a fraction of his $20 million campaign war chest, and didn’t run a single television or radio ad for his own campaign. Still, the Associated Press and other news outlets declared Brown the winner over Republican Neel Kashkari just moments after the polls closed.

Shortly before 10 p.m., Brown was leading Kashkari by 13 points.

Brown, who’s already the longest-serving governor in state history, shrugged off most questions about the historic nature of his win. When reporters pressed him to reflect on his unique position as California’s only four-term chief executive - term limits now bar governors to two terms -  Brown did concede, “This fourth term --  no one’s ever had it, no one’s every going to ever have it again. And I take the responsibility and the opportunity very seriously.”

Update, 8:05 p.m.: The polls closed at 8 p.m. Then news organizations raced to call the governor's race. The winner: Jerry Brown. Cheers went up from the governor's mansion, Brown's non-residence where he's following the results.

At the Kashkari camp? The tweet below, from San Francisco Chronicle political reporter Carla Marinucci, is worth more than the proverbial thousand words.

Original post: The contest at the top of Californians’ ballots has been defined this year by what it is not: a competitive campaign. Gov. Jerry Brown spent 2014 essentially ignoring the fact he was asking voters to grant him an unprecedented fourth term in office. The Democrat didn’t run a single campaign ad focused on his re-election campaign, and only spent a small fraction of his $20 million campaign war chest. The handful of political rallies Brown did hold in the final week before Election Day were focused on Propositions 1 and 2.

And yet, the polls have consistently shown Brown with a commanding lead over his Republican opponent, Neel Kashkari.

“It seems like the Field Poll is validating my campaign strategy,” Brown told reporters last week after the latest survey showed him with a 21-point edge.

Kashkari, a first-time candidate, attempted to run an outside-the-box campaign. The former U.S. Treasury official argued that Brown has ignored California’s lingering poverty problems. In the race’s final weeks, Kashkari focused on Brown’s decision to appeal a Los Angeles judge’s decision that California’s teacher tenure laws violate the state constitution. But Kashkari struggled to raise funds, and many of his more high-profile efforts -- such as a TV ad on the teacher tenure issue featuring a drowning child, and the week he spent posing as a homeless man in Fresno -- were labeled stunts.

As low profile as this year’s gubernatorial campaign has been, tonight’s results will still make history. If Brown wins, he’ll become the first California governor elected to a fourth term. And if Kashkari prevails, the Republican will have pulled off one of the most stunning, unexpected political upsets of all time.