Fran Pavley wins 27th state Senate District

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State Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) defeated Republican prosecutor Todd Zink in the newly drawn 27th Senate District, preliminary election results show.

The race was seen by both parties as crucial to Democrats’ hopes of gaining a supermajority in the upper house.

Pavley beat Zink by 5 percentage points, according to election results with all precincts reporting.

FULL RESULTS: California races

Pavley, 63, already represented much of the newly drawn district in the Senate. About 40% was represented by Republican state Sen. Tony Strickland of Moorpark, who is running for Congress.

Each candidate spent more than $1 million and was helped by outside expenditures -- largely from business groups for Zink, a 43-year-old deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County, and from organized labor for Pavley.

Zink, a Westlake Village resident, is a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve and has served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pavley was a Moorpark school teacher and mayor of Agoura Hills before she was elected to the Assembly in 2000. She was elected to the Senate in 2008.

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