In an unusual move, the DCCC has started airing ads on behalf of Santa Barbara County Supervisor Salud Carbajal ahead of next month's top-two primary in California’s open 24th Congressional District. The spot, which praises Carbajal for protecting California's central coast, is backed by a $136,000 buy, according to Politico, but the ad itself is not what's interesting. Rather, the motivations behind it are what matter.
The DCCC had, for unclear reasons, previously taken sides in this race. The committee added Carbajal to its "Red to Blue" program back in February while snubbing Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider, but for the D-Trip to spend actual money here is quite unexpected. There are no reports of any personal pique at play here—a big factor that drove the DSCC to get heavily involved in Pennsylvania's Democratic Senate primary last month.
It’s possible that the DCCC is just convinced that Schneider would be a weaker general election candidate in this 54-43 Obama seat, though any evidence for such an argument would be pretty slim. A couple of years ago, Schneider upset some local Democrats when she sought to block a popular freeway expansion, but could this issue truly be so damaging as to merit such extraordinary outside intervention? It’s not as though Schneider is walking around with Todd Akin-level liabilities. Schneider has also raised far less money than Carbajal, though national Democrats’ preference for him may have played no small part in that.
It’s also very possible that DCCC is worried that two Republicans will advance to the general election, locking Democrats out entirely. That's happened before, most notoriously in California's 31st District back in 2012, but such a fate seems much less likely here. For one, there are three Republicans in the race who have enough cash to matter: Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian, businessman Justin Fareed, and perennial candidate Matt Kokkonen, who's loaned himself $211,000. Carbajal and Schneider, meanwhile, are the only notable Democrats, so the GOP pie will get split up among three contenders versus just the two who are fighting over the Democratic side of the electorate.
Now, it is true that turnout tends to be lower for Democrats than for Republicans in California's primaries. Indeed, that's a key reason why we've seen shutouts like CA-31's. But not only did that race involve four Democrats and just two Republicans, this year's turnout picture looks different. The GOP presidential primary just concluded but the Democratic contest continues, even though it's clear who the nominee will be. Of course, Bernie Sanders could still drop out, or voters could lose interest, but right now at least, Democrats have more reason to show up in June than Republicans.
So perhaps this is just the DCCC playing it ultra-safe and cautious, but what makes this even stranger is that Carbajal has outraised Schneider more than three-to-one ($1.7 million to just $577,000), and he's released four TV ads to only one for his intra-party rival. In other words, he's not the kind of candidate you think would need help. However, we haven't seen any polling here this entire year, so it's hard to know exactly where the field stands.