As you know, we’ve been watching this one closely because of all the money corporate interests — particularly the insurance industry — dumped into the race on Vargas’s behalf, hoping to get a Democratic candidate more in line with their agenda.

And given the political makeup of the district, most experts think that whoever won the Democratic primary would effectively have won the seat in the November election.

Vargas now faces Republican educator and businessman Brian Hendry. Current seat holder Denise Ducheny, a Democrat, is termed out.

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Mary Salas’s decision to seek a recount in the state Senate District 40 Democratic primary is rooted in a desire to ensure every vote counts — and the 50-50 chance that a recount will find a mistake that could change the results. As it stands, Salas trails Juan Vargas, a favorite of corporate interests, by a handful of votes. The state Secretary of State website’s election results page says the margin is 12, though Salas campaign manager Barry Klein said this morning they were told the margin is 22 votes.

Mary Salas

“With elections, you never quite know what’s going to happen at the end of the day,” Klein said. “With such a small margin, you can’t help but go forward and make sure that every vote is counted correctly. Even the smallest mistake, even though the boards of elections are doing a fantastic job, can sway something.”

It’s a long shot, says Alex Vassar, who helps run the Join California political archive when he’s not serving as floor manager for the Senate Republican Policy Office.

“Because of how elections results are recorded makes it very difficult to get a good count of how often recounts impact the outcome. Because the Secretary of State only publishes the final vote count (in the Statement of Vote, after the certification of the vote), the only time that the ‘official record’ shows recounts resulting in a changed outcome is when a seat is successfully contested. The only successful contest of an election in recent history was the Fondse/Johnston recount in 1980, which stands out because it was just that rare.”

In that 1980 Assembly race, Republican Adrian Frondse was declared the winner and sworn in, but Democrat Patrick Johnston was later declared the winner in a recount, unseating Frondse. It’s the the only time in memory that happened. But there have been a few other close shaves, according to this list Vassar sent along:

* 2008 General – SD 19 – A 1% recount was required because of how close the lead that Tony Strickland held over Hanna Beth Jackson. Vote lead did not change.

* 2006 General – SD 34 – A recount was considered, but ultimately decided against because Lou Correa had a 1,302 vote lead over Lynn Daucher.

* 2006 Primary – SD 30 – Rudy Bermudez requested a recount after Ron Calderon ended ahead in the initial vote count. Vote lead did not change.

* 2006 Special – SD 35 – Diane Harkey requested a recount of Tom Harman’s narrow lead, which took two weeks. Vote lead did not change.

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That’s one of the races, you might recall, in which corporate interests spent a ton of money to try to get their favored candidate, Juan Vargas, into the general election, facing off against Brian Hendry, who won the Republican nomination  uncontested.

The race was too close to call on election night, and just got tighter as the vote count progressed. With all the counties reporting results to the state Secretary of State, Vargas had 24,138 votes to Salas’ 24,126 votes.

We’ll update tomorrow with some details on what the recount entails, and what history might tell us about the process.

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In the end, front groups for the oil, insurance, health care and pharmaceutical industries that want to see consumers and attorneys take it below the belt instead got walloped in the polls. And they spent a whole heap of money along the way.

Among the biggest losers? The Civil Justice Assn. of California and its board of corporate giants that includes BP, AIG, the California Building Industry Assn., Dow Chemical, Pfizer, State Farm Insurance and lots more.

Here’s a look at the numbers.

$60 million

(That’s how much Mercury Insurance and PG&E spent while failing to pass Propositions 16 and 17).

$2.5 million

(What anti-tort groups CJAC and Californians Allied for Patient Protection poured into showdown races).

684

(The vote lead progressive Democrat Mary Salas holds over corporation-backed candidate Juan Vargas, an insurance executive, in the 40^th Senate District primary).

10

(The number of races targeted by the Consumer Attorneys of California).

10

(The number of targeted races in which candidates supported by the Consumer Attorneys of California either won or hold the lead).

0

(The number of targeted races won by candidates supported by CJAC and CAPP).

The outcome of this election makes it clear that voters are getting canny about corporate-backed candidates and causes. In an era of BP oil spills and runaway Toyotas, the public has grown wise to the reality that corporate candidates are bent on undercutting the civil justice system to help boost the profits reaped by corporations and their billionaire leaders. The common man and woman can make a difference simply by stepping into the voting booth and making wise choices.

–Eric Bailey

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PG&E, as you know, spent more than $46 million on Proposition 16, which would have required local governments to obtain 2/3rds voter approval before establishing a public utility along the lines of the Marin Clean Energy program. The Marin program is designed to provide consumers with a conduit for receiving electricity from renewable resources, and an alternative to PG&E’s supply. PG&E had told its stockholders it planned to spend up to $35 million pushing Prop. 16 in the belief that it would be cheaper to win the statewide initiative than to fight each Marin-style local effort one by one.

Until, of course, voters see through your charade. Might be a good time for enterprising shareholder rights advocates to start challenging the wisdom of a utility spending so much of its shareholders’ money — and running 31% over budget — to push bad public policy.

On the insurance front, Mercury spent nearly $16 million trying to persuade voters that Proposition 17 was good for consumers, when in reality it would have let insurance companies charge consumers exorbitant fees if they have a lapse in coverage. Like trying to buy fresh policies after dropping insurance while in military service, going car-less in areas like San Francisco with good mass transit systems, or periods of unemployment in which people stop driving for economic reasons.

Like I said, it’s heartening to see that voters didn’t buy what those two corporations were selling. Or, rather, what they were trying to buy — their own special pieces of public policy.

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Which gives us a chance to link to these two short pieces in the Sacramento Bee, a couple of Q&As with Kelly and Kamala Harris, who seem to be the biggest dogs in the hunt among at least five Democratic contenders for the Attorney General nomination. It’s impossible to know what went on in the interview with the Bee’s editorial board, but it’s odd that while the Harris piece lays out her positions on specific issues — i.e., personally against the death penalty but would enforce existing laws — the piece on Kelly makes it seem as though he’s running against Meg Whitman.

And he doesn’t think voters will reject him because he’s rich — rich enough, he says, to finance his own general election campaign, too. Kelly, you’ll recall, made a pile as the former privacy officer for Facebook. The Bee interview didn’t say whether Kelly thought voters might hold that against him.

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