California Democrats flipped seven Republican-held congressional seats—half of the state’s GOP delegation—in the 2018 elections, and newly reported data from Political Data Inc. and the UC Davis Center for Regional Change demonstrate just how critical a massive surge in Latino turnout was to those historic gains.
As shown on the table below, Latinos voters made up a similar share of the electorate in those seven districts in both 2018 and 2016. That’s remarkable, because most Democratic-leaning constituences—including Latinos—see a steep drop-off in participation in midterm elections compared to presidential years. You can see this illustrated starkly by comparing Latino turnout last year with Latino turnout in the prior midterms in 2014.
Latino Share of Electorate in Seats Democrats Flipped in 2018
| District |
2018 Dem Winner |
2018 Share |
2016 Share |
2014 Share |
| CA-10 |
Josh Harder |
26% |
26% |
18% |
| CA-21 |
T.J. Cox |
52% |
53% |
44% |
| CA-25 |
Katie Hill |
22% |
23% |
15% |
| CA-39 |
Gil Cisneros |
24% |
24% |
17% |
| CA-45 |
Katie Porter |
11% |
12% |
8% |
| CA-48 |
Harley Rouda |
10% |
10% |
7% |
| CA-49 |
Mike Levin |
12% |
12% |
8% |
The fact that presidential-level Latino turnout persisted in 2018 was an important factor in all of these races, but especially so in California’s 21st District, where it led to one of the biggest upsets of the cycle. In this district, located in California’s heavily agricultural Central Valley, Democrats had consistently put together terrible performances in past midterms, particularly in 2014 and 2010, in large part because the district's Latino-majority population of eligible voters wasn't translating into a Latino-majority share of the electorate
So even though the 21st voted by a comfortable 55-40 margin for Hillary Clinton in 2016, election prognosticators viewed Republican Rep. David Valadao as the heavy favorite in 2018, given his district’s propensity for much whiter and more conservative electorates in midterms. But once all the votes were counted, Valadao found himself losing by 50.4-49.6 to Democrat T.J. Cox in an utter shocker, and the unexpect Latino majority undoubtedly made the difference.
Democrats have long wondered what it would take to resolve their midterm turnout problems as they increasingly rely on younger voters and voters of color, who are less likely to turn out when the presidential race isn’t on the ballot. 2018 is the first election in where they may finally have started finding some answers.
