Today we have two elec­tions of sig­nif­i­cance. Cal­i­for­nia is hold­ing its pri­maries, and Wis­con­sin is hold­ing recall elec­tions for the Gov­er­nor and four state Senators.

In Cal­i­for­nia, the selec­tions for Pres­i­dent are fore­gone con­clu­sions, and decid­edly unin­ter­est­ing, but there are two other state bal­lot items, and one local, wor­thy of examination.

First up is the Class 1 Sen­ate seat, cur­rently occu­pied by Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Dianne Fein­stein. There’s no seri­ous like­li­hood that she will lose today, but this is the first elec­tion in Cal­i­for­nia in which the two Sen­ate can­di­dates with the most votes, regard­less of party, will face each other in Novem­ber. The one poll con­ducted shows Fein­stein with 51 per­cent, and every­one else in the two-​​percent-​​or-​​less line. This puts every­one else at small enough num­bers as to be sta­tis­ti­cally tied, mak­ing it vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble to deter­mine who will be her oppo­nent. There has been zero adver­tis­ing for this seat thus far. In essence, it’s DiFei up against a wildcard.

Fur­ther down the bal­lot is an ini­tia­tive to dou­ble the tax on cig­a­rettes. While the Sen­ate race has had no adver­tis­ing, the tobacco com­pa­nies have spent heav­ily to try to defeat this ini­tia­tive. On the other side, the Amer­i­can Can­cer Soci­ety, the Amer­i­can Lung Asso­ci­a­tion, and a hand­ful of sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tions have spent nearly the same amount. If the ini­tia­tive passes, it’s clear that the tobacco com­pa­nies have plenty to lose (hence their expen­di­tures). At the same time, pas­sage ben­e­fits the other side greatly as well, to the tune of about half a bil­lion dol­lars per year. Some polls sug­gest the ini­tia­tive will pass, while oth­ers show a dead heat. It’s the lat­est bat­tle over taxes, and bat­tle with Big Tobacco, and it will be inter­est­ing to see how it plays out.

And, on a much smaller scale…the city of San Jose has Mea­sure B on the bal­lot, which is being viewed by many as a bell­wether for pen­sion reform across the coun­try. Backed by Mayor Chuck Reed, the mea­sure would give city employ­ees the choice of accept­ing a lower pen­sion pay­out or con­tribut­ing more and keep­ing the same payout.

Speak­ing of pen­sion reform…in Wis­con­sin, the recall of Gov­er­nor Scott Walker looks likely to fail, if you exam­ine the polls with a crit­i­cal eye. Walker has been on a slow but steady rise in polls for the past month, with unde­cided vot­ers break­ing pretty con­sis­tently for the incum­bent. That’s not to say that it’s impos­si­ble for the recall to be suc­cess­ful; spe­cial elec­tions of this sort often have sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences between polls and elec­tion results. It just doesn’t seem likely in this case, given how con­sis­tent every­thing has been for well over a month.

There are also four Repub­li­can state Sen­a­tors up for recall. Well, tech­ni­cally it’s three. One, state Sen­a­tor Pam Gal­loway of the 29th Dis­trict, left office on March 16; for­mer Assem­bly mem­ber Jerry Petrowski is tak­ing her place on the recall bal­lot. Of the four seats, only that in the 21st Dis­trict, held by Van Wang­gaard, looks to be in dan­ger. Wang­gaard is fac­ing John Lehman, the man he defeated in 2010 by five points.

Over­all, the most likely out­come of today’s elec­tion is main­te­nance of the sta­tus quo. A mod­er­ately close sec­ond like­li­hood is Repub­li­can loss of the 21st Dis­trict seat, which would shift the state Sen­ate major­ity to the Democ­rats. Bar­ring an incred­i­ble GOTV effort by Democ­rats, Walker appears ready to walk away with a vic­tory today.

Polit­i­cal pun­dits will spill a great deal of ink (both phys­i­cal and vir­tual) over how today’s recall elec­tions in Wis­con­sin serve as a bell­wether for the upcom­ing Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. It’s all filler, even as an attempt to pre­dict the Wis­con­sin vote for Pres­i­dent. Polls have con­sis­tently diverged between the recalls and the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, even when con­ducted by the same firms as part of the same tele­phone calls. A Repub­li­can sweep is no more indica­tive that Rom­ney will carry Wis­con­sin than a Demo­c­ra­tic sweep would be indica­tive of an Obama victory.

That won’t stop peo­ple from try­ing to claim oth­er­wise, of course.

So, what are your pre­dic­tions for today? How will things turn out in these two states?

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