California Primary to General Translation

Is this a Democratic year? Do the special elections tell us that or are they unique one offs? One good way to tell will be the California primaries. Since it’s top two and everyone can vote for anyone it mirrors the conditions in November. So California will be a good indicator.

In order to give us an idea of what the primary results will tell us we’ll first look at the California general elections.

There were 29 congressional districts where a Republican faced off with a Democrat in the general elections in 2012, 2014, and 2016. The other 24 districts either didn’t have a Republican or a Democrat in one of those three general elections. Keep in mind that these 33 districts aren’t representative of California as a whole, just the districts where the two parties faced off. There are some heavily Democratic districts in there but many of the other 24 are the most heavily Democratic. So Republicans did better here than they did statewide.

Democrats got 54.6% of the vote in these districts in 2012, 51.6% in 2014, and 57.2% in 2016. So 2014 was a Republican year, 2016 a Democratic year, and 2012 in the middle. I want to reiterate that these aren’t the statewide vote. Democrats got 62.0% of the congressional vote statewide in 2012, 57.7% in 2014, and 64.8% in 2016. These numbers shouldn’t be taken as an accurate reflection of the statewide share either, however, since each district didn’t have a Republican and a Democrat running. In 2016, for example, these totals represent 60 Democrats and only 44 Republicans.

There’s a twist when looking at the primary, however. Even though 2014 was a very Republican general election the primary was actually even more Republican. In 6 statewide races Democrats got 56.3% of the two party vote in the primary but actually did better in the general election, getting 57.5%.

On the other hand, Democrats got 70% of the two party Presidential vote in the 2016 primary but only 66% in the general election. Hillary Clinton blew out Donald Trump in the general election but the primary was even more Democratic.

There are 13 congressional districts where the margin of victory for one party was 10% or less in one of the four primary or general elections in 2014 and 2016. They are CA-3, 7, 9, 10, 16, 21, 24, 26, 31, 36, 39, 49, and 52. There are 2 other districts that weren’t that close in any of the four elections, CA-45 and 48. Those 2 are expected to be close this year.

In 2014 Republicans averaged a margin of victory of 13.6% in the primary in these 15 districts. That dropped to only 5.8% in the general election. In 2016 Democrats had an average margin of victory of 1.2% in the primary and 2.4% in the general election.

The statewide primaries for senator, governor, and other downballot races should tell us a lot about what kind of year we should expect. If Democrats are close to the 70% they got in 2016 we should see a very Democratic year. Even when they did get 70% they didn’t win any district that they didn’t get more votes in during the June primary. If it’s a heavily Democratic primary Democrats shouldn’t count on winning any district in November that they don’t win in June.

The Democratic statewide vote share in June is closer to the 56% of 2014 there won’t be a blue wave, although we should expect Democrats to make gains on their totals in November.

There’s a huge middle ground here between 56% and 70% and chances are the average statewide vote will fall between 2014 and 2016. Is it possible for Democrats to get more than 70% in a statewide vote? I don’t think so. The last election was a perfect storm for them. Competitive Democratic primaries with uncompetitive Republican ones in a Democratic year. I can’t see that replicated.

We don’t know what the primary statewide vote would have to be for Democrats not to make much in the way of gains but we probably can tell how Democratic the year is based on where it falls between 56% and 70%.