With just over two weeks until the California primary, statewide campaigns for Senate, Assembly and Congress are accelerating at full speed, preparing for what will likely be a very close election.

The following Q&A is with Republican Mike Stoker, candidate for State Senate District 19.

Are you personally in favor of the new open primary system?

Partisan gridlock happens because Congress manages too many aspects of our lives. Americans will never agree on everything, but they don’t have to unless their decisions are centralized and made for everybody by one group.
Tisha Casida, Independent candidate in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District 

A new poll shows that independent voters in five swing-states, three of which are among the hardest hit by foreclosures and unemployment, disapprove of President Obama's leadership throughout the housing crisis.

The upcoming open primaries on June 5 will alter California’s political landscape considerably. Will open primaries help end political gridlock? Let's hope so. But they could also lead to serious divisions within parties and might not lead to much change at all.

Every election season, American voters behold the clamor between Republican and Democratic candidates over what they will or will not do in office. The winners then go to Washington DC as members of Congress to sponsor and vote on legislation in order to make more and more of your choices for you, consolidating decision-making, public policy, and power in the hands of a few. Then the next election season, they use these pieces of legislation to show you just how much they've done for you.

Voter turnout rates of women have exceeded that of men in past elections. According to the Reuters Center for American Women and Politics, every presidential election since 1980 has seen the number of female voters surpass that of males by between four to seven million votes.