With the California ballots mostly counted, we now have a pretty good idea how all the candidates did in the various districts. The one thing that still needs to be settled is whether Hans Keirstead or Harley Rouda will be the nominee in CA-48. While CA-48 is an important race, either candidate is perfectly acceptable and neither is a game changer, so who ultimately becomes the nominee won’t change the analysis much.

Before I go into each race, I’d like to mention that there are a few districts where Democrats will need to play some defense: CA-7, CA-24 and CA-31 all had Democratic incumbents who barely cleared 50%. I don’t expect any of these districts to fall, but it’s not impossible if the environment shifts several points to the right between now and November.



In writing this, I looked at a few different measures: the party shares in the primary, which has historically been strongly correlated to the general election, the ratings from Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections, Eliot Morris’ algorithm for projecting congressional races, and finally some of my own subjective criteria. At the bottom of this article will be a chart summarizing all the data. One note on the vote shares: I counted Green and Peace and Freedom Candidates as Democrats as well as Libertarian and American Independent candidates as Republicans. No Party Preference candidates were analysed and assigned on an individual basis; most either had platforms similar to Democrats or no real platform at all (for the latter, I simply treated their totals as non-votes). So, let’s get on with the ratings:

Great Pickup Opportunity

California 49: This Northern San Diego- Southern Orange County district represents one of the best pickup opportunities in the country for Democrats in November. Darrell Issa won this district by less than a point in 2016, while Clinton won by 7.5 points. Issa decided running for re-election wasn’t worth the bother and threw in the towel. Democrats combined for 52% of the vote total in the primary (and primaries tend to be more Republican leaning than the general elections). Environmental Attorney Mike Levin was the party’s top choice and should be a favorite to best Diane Harkey in November. Two of the three main rating systems have this district at “lean D” and Morris projects an 87% chance of flipping the seat.

There is one disappointing thing about the district that shows a big flaw in the top-2 primary system, imo. Because of the top-2 system, voters often vote for who they think has the best chance of making the top-2, rather than for their favorite candidate for fear of shutout. However, “who they think has the best chance” usually ends up being whoever party officials promote. I wonder how many people voted for Levin rather than Jacobs because they felt they had to in order to get a Democrat on the ballot in November, and whether Jacobs was actually the more preferred candidate. It’s a question that we’ll never be able to answer. I have nothing against Levin and think he’ll be a great representative, but Sara Jacobs is a 29 year old former state department employee who I feel could have been a party stalwart for decades and it’s a shame if the top-2 primary prevented that.

Good Pickup Opportunites

California 10: The next five can really be ranked in any order and have it be well justified. I picked California 10 first because Eliot Morris’ system actually ranks it as the best pickup opportunity of all, slightly edging out CA-49 87.1% to 86.9%. I don’t buy into the idea that CA-10 is a stronger opportunity than CA-49 and neither do any of the big projectors, but there are some strong signs. For starters, Democrats combined by 48%. Accounting for the lean in primaries, that makes them slight favorites in November. Also, Denham himself only got 37.5% of the vote showing weakness within his own party (fortunately Howze didn’t eat much more into his support or Democrats would have been locked out!) and was only elected by a 3.5 point margin in 2016. Considering the change in environment, teacher and businessman Josh Harder should be mildly favored in this district.

California 25: Demcrats should be feeling pretty good about the primary results in this district covering Simi Valley and the suburban/rural areas of Northern LA County. While Steve Knight got 52.3% of the vote, the typical shift from primaries to the general should nudge him just under 50%. Moreover, Dave Wasserman believed that non-profit Katie Hill was the best candiate for this district:



x Projection: in #CA25, Katie Hill (D) has advanced to November vs. Rep. Steve Knight (R), defeating '16 nominee Bryan Caforio (D). @CookPolitical rating: Toss Up, but in this political climate, it should be Hill's to lose. Ã¢ÂÂ Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) June 6, 2018

I personally plan to be volunteering for Katie Hill’s campaign, as I live about a half hour drive from Simi Valley.

California 48: I’m ranking this Orange County district a bit higher than others even though the primary performance was mediocre (only 46% D) and Morris’ projection only sees a 45% chance of flip. I do this because the incumbent candidate, Dana Rohrabacher is so awful. While Rohrabacher has been supportive of Putin for many years, it’s only recently become well known. The infamous Kevin McCarthy line of Trump and Rohrabacher being the two people that Putin pays should become well known in this district by November. Rohrabacher couldn’t even beat 31% in the primary, which is terrible for an incumbent. Whether it’s Rouda or Keistead who gets the nomination, they should have a good shot at taking down Rohrabacher.

California 39: If I only looked at the big three projectors, I would have put this Orange County second. However, Democrats had a pretty lackluster primary (45% of the vote) and got a fairly meh candidate. Still, this is an open seat that Clinton won by 8.6 points in 2016. Gil Cisneros is a Navy Veteran and a lottery winner. The former quality should help in a conservative district and the latter means he can self-fund. Still, he’s a former Republican and I can’t help but feel meh about him as a candidate. There’s a number of runner ups, like Sara Jacobs, Dave Min and Bryan Caforio that I’d rather move to this district, but considering there was a high chance of shutout here, we got what we could. Young Kim also provides a challenge as she’s an Asian woman could very well take some votes of usual Democratic voters, especially Asian voters.

California 45: All the major projectors have this district as “lean R,” though Mimi Walters actually got a slightly lower vote share than Steve Knight did. I’ve heard some people say that Democrats chose the wrong candidate because Dave Min would have done well with Asian voters in this Orange County district. However, Elizabeth Warren endorsed Katie Porter and I trust Warren to not back a weak candidate. The fundamentals are fairly tough in this race. Morris’ model considers Porter the slightest of underdogs with a 48% chance of flipping this district, which sounds about right.

Long Shots

California 21: This district is a bit of an oddball and one where the traditional forecasters and the fundamental based model diverge greatly. All three forecasters rank this district as “likely Republican,” but Morris’ model projects an 80% chance of flipping the district, which would rate as “likely Democrat”! This is a PVI D+5 district that Clinton won by 15.5 points in 2016, but Valadao won the district by 13.5 points at the same time, among the largest splits in the country. Similarly, Valadao got over 63% in the primary. CA-21, located in the Central Valley, is one of the poorest districts in the country and typically has the lowest turnout of any district in California. I feel like in order for a Democrat to win this district, they’d need to have a connection to the Hispanic community in order to drive turnout among the key demographic. Emilio Huerta, son of labor icon Dolores Huerta, was originally going to be the nominee for this district. However, he dropped out right before the filing deadline and T.J. Cox took his place (which may have saved CA-10 from a lockout). Huerta was a poor fundraiser and lost to Valadao in 2016. Given the advantages that Huerta had over Cox, CA-21 feels like a heavy lift. Still, the presidential lean of this district makes it worth watching in November.

California 22: The above seven districts were all in watch lists from the beginning of the cycle because Clinton carried all of them in 2016. Now we get to the seven districts that went red on a presidential level as well. Of those districts, the only one that Clinton lost by single digits was CA-22 (lost by 9.5 points). However, that’s not why I rank it above the next few. Rather, I do so because of the possibility that Nunes’ involvement in obstructing the Russia probe blows up on him. Attorney Andrew Janz has been hitting Nunes hard on this point and Nunes getting only 58% in the primary as the only Republican shows some weakness. Still, only Sabato sees this district as being in play and Morris projects the chance of a flip at 2%. Morris’ system doesn’t account for the scandal potential, though, so I’d say this one has more like a 20% chance of flipping.

California 4: The big three all have this district covering the Sierra Nevadas as “likely R.” While this is a fairly red district (Trump won by 14.7 points), Tom McClintock has been a poor fundraiser and Jessica Morse has actually outfundraised him. McClintock actually attracted a Republican opponent. And while Republicans combined for 59% of the vote, McClintock himself only got 52% of the vote. McClintock is a fairly mainstream Republican and has served a long time so a game changing scandal is unlikely. Still, if the national environment moves a few points left between now and November, Morse is someone who should be able to capitalize, but it will be tough.

California 1: This was a district that was on nobody’s radar and still remains that way. However, LaMalfa’s performance in the primary was worse than McClintock’s- 51.5% for him and 57.5% combined for Republicans. Morris’ model actually has CA-1 at around twice the chance of CA-4 of flipping at 15.5%. If the national environment shifts to the left by a few points, the primary results suggest Audrey Denney could potentially pull off a stunning upset.

California 50: Inside Elections still has this one rated as “likely Republican” but it’s tough to see how Ammar Campa-Najjar pulls this one off. Democrats failed to crack 37% in the primary here. And while Trump only won this district by 15 points, Hunter won by 27. Polling has shown Trump is still popular in this district. The one thing that could fell Hunter is that his campaign finance scandal could blow up, but that seems pretty unlikely.

Sorry, but no

California 42: Ken Calvert got 61% in his primary and looks close to untouchable. Julia Peacock is a true progressive. While that might be fine in the Orange County districts, I don’t really see this one as competitive. Shockingly, Morris’ system projects a healthy 24.2% chance of flipping this district, but I just don’t see it.

California 23: This Central Valley district is the most Republican leaning in California. It has a PVI of R+14 and McCarthy is being considered or Speaker of the House. Matta is a perfectly decent candidate- a bilingual Latina and a heavily Hispanic district from a military family and operates a non-profit. But McCarthy got 69% in the primary, the same as he did in the 2016 general election. He will be re-elected unless he’s either in prison or dead.

California 8: It’s tough to find a district where Democrats have less of a chance than CA-23, but there is one. The reason why? Democrats got shutout in the primary and there will only be Republicans on the ballot in November.