Despite crowded fields in the “jungle” primaries of several flippable Southern California Congressional districts, Democrats managed enough votes to avoid the disaster of not advancing candidates to the general election. There were many of us affiliated with Indivisible/Inland Valley, Swing Left Inland Valley, Swing So Cal Left, PUSH and Swing Left CA-39, in cooperation with other local groups, who had been phone banking and canvassing precincts in CA-25, CA-39, CA-48 and CA-49 since at least September of last year.
Hundreds of us knocked on thousands of doors, focusing mostly on registered Dems and NPPs, talking to those who would listen, registering new and recently moved residents, and sending them postcards, in an effort to get them to vote. Swing Left supplied us with paper turf lists which were uploaded manually after each canvass. For the last push we ran two shifts a day, Saturday through Tuesday, and used the PDI app for our phones, which provided us with names, addresses, contact history and maps for the neighborhoods of registered Dems, instantly updating our results. Saturday and Sunday alone our volunteers knocked on 1014 doors.
We were obviously concerned when so many quality Democrats entered the races, and none of them seemed to pull far enough ahead of the pack to gain party endorsements. Except for CA-48, Dana Rohrabacher’s district, where the California Democratic Party endorsed Dr. Hans Keirstead, while the DCCC endorsed Harley Rouda. Arrgh! At this writing the two are separated by 73 votes in a battle for second place and a spot in the general. Republican challenger, Scott Baugh, who entered the race at the last minute, remains in fourth place, a couple hundred votes behind the Democrats. With an anemic 30%, incumbent, Rohrabacher looks vulnerable in the general as the combined total Democratic votes, 63,265, are significantly above the total Republican vote of $55,842.
In CA-39, retiring Republican, Ed Royce’s district, the DCCC “promoted” but not endorsed, Gil Cisneros appears to have convincingly secured second place, just a 2% behind Royce’s hand picked successor, Young Kim. While Cisneros finished strong against Kim, the aggregate totals favor Republicans 45,933 to 37,557. Hopefully, Cisneros, a wealthy lottery winner, former Republican Iraq war veteran will have what it takes to prevail in this district that Hillary won in 2016.
In the race for Darrell Issa’s open 49th seat, Republican Diane Harkey came out on top with 25.5% over a closely packed trio of Democrats, Mike Levin (17.1%), Sara Jacobs (15.5%) and Doug Applegate (13.2%). Issa only won in 2016 by about 1600 votes, and yesterday’s aggregate vote totals favor Democrats 55,972 to 53,343.
Since there was no Republican Challenger for Steve Knight in CA-25 the only real question was whether front running Katie Hill or Bryan Caforio would face Knight in November. It appears that Emily’s List endorsed Hill has prevailed over Caforio. Unlike 48 and 49, the aggregate Democratic vote total lags behind Knight 36,895 to 41,310, So even if the Democrats unite behind Hill, she will have an uphill climb.
I was somewhat discouraged when the LA Times reported this morning that overall voter turnout was not improved over the previous midterm in 2014.
Final numbers on voter participation won’t be in for a while, but turnout seems unexceptional. With more than 97% of the precincts reporting, less than 21% of registered voters had cast ballots. That’s in line with the anemic turnout in the 2014 primary, and far, far below the five previous midterm election primaries.
Curious as to whether our specific activism had any effect on voter turnout, I was encouraged when I read these numbers from CA-49 shared by Dan Auerbach of Swing SoCal Left.
CA-49 2018 Primary ballots cast for party compared with 2014:
____________2014______2018______Change
Dem:......34,849......55,927............+60% - AWESOME!
Rep:.......56,558......53,343...............-6% - So sad
CA-49 Dems received more votes in 2018 primary then Reps. Bodes quite well for November since Reps as a percentage of vote historically do worse in the November general election.
And here are some numbers from Sharon Cohen, who along with Debra Mendez spearheaded our effort in CA-49, which was focused only on the Orange County portion of the district.
CA-49 (Orange Cnty ONLY) 2018 Primary ballots cast for party compared with 2014:
____________2014______2018______Change
Dem:.........1,858.......11,584...........+523% - YOWZA!!
Rep:........ 15,162......15,593................+3% - Awww, cute
Way to go Sharon, Deb et. al.
If anybody has any more relevant data please share in the comments below.
