By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, November 16 at 4:15 PM
November 16, 2005 -- Derio Gambaro has formed a campaign committee to run for the state senate seat being vacated by the term-limited Sen. Pat Dougherty.
The former state representative and St. Louis Board of Elections official joins a field of three other candidates, including southsider and former congressional candidate Jeff Smith, and the two northside state representatives Amber Boykins and Yaphett El-Amin.
Gambaro finds himself with some catching up to do. Smith will likely break the $100,000 mark by January. And while their fundraising efforts have not been nearly as strong, Boykins ($35,000) and El-Amin ($15,000) do have some cash on hand, thanks largely to personal loans to their campaigns.
Gambaro will likely find plenty of funds from the so-called Old Machine, the established political organizations that still hold some ill feelings to the young Smith who nearly defeated Congressman Russ Carnahan in 2004.
With four candidates now in the race, is this anybody's ballgame? Not quite.
Past history suggests southside turn-out trumps northside turn-out. If Smith and Gambaro have a larger pool of voters to split than Boykins and El-Amin, it is still unlikely that either northside candidate would win.
But if the southside vote was indeed split, a unified northside vote could defeat it and reclaim the 4th District for an African-American candidate.
Another scenario involves any of the four candidates reaching across Delmar and winning a significant number of opposite race votes. Unlikely, but possible.
The window to formally file to run for the seat doesn't open a few more months. And the deadline is still weeks later. Maybe a half-dozen more candidates will enter the race and then it really would be anybody's ballgame.
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Also... State Sen. Maida Coleman finally made up her mind and filed her campaign committee this week to run for state auditor.
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