Democrats are on the verge of losing three California House seats they grabbed from Republicans two years ago, and the late surge of support that propelled them to victory in 2018 so far has not shown up.
It’s part of a trend for Democrats, who took control of the House in the “blue wave” election of 2018. This year, the party is on track to lose seats nationally and enter Joe Biden’s presidency with a shrunken majority.
Three Democrats who flipped GOP-held seats in the blue wave, Reps. Gil Cisneros and Harley Rouda of Orange County and TJ Cox of Fresno, were all behind on election day and have seen the gap grow, not shrink, since then. Another Democrat in a closely watched race, Assembly member Christy Smith of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), held an election night lead, only to quickly lose it to GOP Rep. Mike Garcia.
All the races remain close with tens of thousands of ballots still uncounted. Garcia, for example, held only a 432-vote edge over Smith on Sunday.
But there’s still plenty of concern from Democrats, not only from party leaders but also from the candidates themselves.
In a fundraising email, Rouda said he woke up Saturday “into another day of uncertainty: of who was going to win my race,” along with concerns about Democrats’ chances to take the Senate and the presidency.
Biden took care of one of those worries, but the other two linger.
Losses in California would add to what has already been a surprisingly successful election for House Republicans. Instead of what many pollsters had predicted would be a double-digit pickup on election day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco has watched her majority drop from 35 seats to just 19, with a number of races still undecided.
California Republicans, who saw four of their candidates lose after leading on election night two years ago, aren’t taking anything for granted.
“We’re encouraged by the early results, but we know there are a lot of votes yet to be counted,” said Andrew Renteria, a spokesperson for former GOP Rep. David Valadao of Hanford (Kings County), who had a 4,500-vote lead over Cox on Sunday.
In 2018, Cox took Valadao’s seat by 862 votes in a race that wasn’t decided until nearly a month after election day. But this year, instead of a steady flow of Democrat-favoring numbers, Valadao has seen his lead grow by more than 1,500 votes since Thursday.
It’s a phenomenon that has been seen across the country. Democrats, with the encouragement of party leaders, cast their ballots early. In states like California, which process those mail ballots as they arrive, the early results on election night favored Democrats. But many Republicans followed President Trump’s call to cast their ballots on election day, narrowing the gap with Democrats as those polling place votes were counted.
That surge of early Democratic ballots also meant there was a smaller percentage of the party’s vote being counted in the days after the election, making it harder to close the gap with Republican front-runners.
On Sunday, Cox released a video urging his supporters to stay patient. “Like you, I’m excited to see the results of our race,” he said. “We’re seen record-breaking turnout in this election and, like in 2018, tens of thousands of ballots haven’t been counted yet.”
Cox’s team pointed to Kern County, where they said more than 25,000 ballots in the race remained uncounted on Saturday. But Kern County, like Tulare and Kings counties, backed Trump on election day. Of the four counties in Cox’s 21st congressional district, Biden won only Fresno County.
Democrats see Rouda as their most endangered California incumbent. Rouda’s district, which includes a number of upscale beach towns in Orange County, had elected Republicans for decades before Rouda ousted GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in 2018. Republicans still hold a 5-percentage-point registration edge.
Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel held a 6,973-vote lead over Rouda on Sunday, more than double what she had three days before. There were only about 33,000 votes left to count in the entire county.
The picture wasn’t quite as clear in the 39th district, where former GOP Assembly member Young Kim was leading Cisneros by 3,095 votes in another rematch of 2018. While 60% of the district’s voters are in Orange County, where the count was nearly complete, there were still plenty of uncounted ballots in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.
The more than 600,000 ballots left to count in all of Los Angeles County, which has 82% of the district’s voters, has Democrats thinking Smith can overtake Garcia and flip that seat from the Republicans. Garcia, a business owner and former naval officer, beat the Democrat soundly in the May special election for the seat left open by last year’s resignation of Democratic Rep. Katie Hill. But Smith received a higher percentage of votes from Los Angeles County, while Garcia ran stronger in Ventura County.
Republicans also held on to an open seat in San Diego County, when Darrell Issa, a former GOP House member from a neighboring district, was declared the winner over Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar. The seat was left open after GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr. resigned after being convicted of campaign finance violations.
John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
"lose" - Google News
November 09, 2020 at 05:45AM
https://ift.tt/2I8ydxF
Troubling election trend for House Democrats in California — they’re losing ground - San Francisco Chronicle
"lose" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3fa3ADu https://ift.tt/2VWImBB
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Troubling election trend for House Democrats in California — they’re losing ground - San Francisco Chronicle"
Post a Comment