After weeks of Democratic angst over California’s unusual “top two” primary system, it appears the party has avoided its nightmare scenario of being locked out of the ballot in Republican-held districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

However, the state’s heavy reliance on voting by mail means the results in several key races remained unclear on Wednesday morning.

California adopted its top two system after a 2010 ballot initiative, resulting in an unusual electoral process in which candidates from all parties compete in an open primary. The two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, face off in the November general election.



The state has become a key battleground in the effort by Democrats to regain control of the House of Representatives in November. It has seven House districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 which are currently held by Republicans, nearly a third of the 24 seats that Democrats need to pick up in the national midterm election. However, the top two system had raised the possibility of Democrats being locked out in key districts. If a divided Democratic field had drastically split the party’s vote, it risked leaving Republicans to snatch the top two places and then run against each other in November, with no Democratic candidates in the field. This scenario led to national Democratic groups spending millions of dollars in recent weeks in order to simply assure that the party had a candidate on the ballot in November.

Democrats were particularly concerned about this possibility in three southern California districts. Two were open Republican-held seats in which Clinton performed strongly in the 2016 presidential election.



The third is the seat held by the controversial Republican Dana Rohrabacher, who has been dubbed “Vladimir Putin’s favourite congressman”. He drew a primary challenge from Scott Baugh, the former Republican leader in the state assembly. Baugh’s campaign threatened to draw enough disaffected Republicans to keep any Democrat from appearing on the ballot in November.

Baugh was in a close race with two Democrats, the scientist Hans Keirstead and the businessman Harley Rouda, to take on Rohrabacher in November. However, Rouda, who received late backing from national Democrats, was in the strongest position of the three by Wednesday morning.

The incumbent state senator Dianne Feinstein looks likely to face fellow Democrat Kevin De Leon in the November vote. Photograph: Jose Luis Magana/AP

A fourth potential lockout emerged on election night in California’s Central Valley, a district that is 40% Hispanic and which Clinton won by 3 percentage points. The conservative Ted Howze was in a tight race with the Democrat Josh Harder to take on the incumbent Republican Jeff Denham. However, Harder declared victory in a tweet on Tuesday night and seemed likely to advance to the general election.

The top two system could also lock Republicans out of California’s Senate race, in which the Democratic longtime incumbent Dianne Feinstein is likely to face the state’s former senate president pro tempore Kevin de Léon, a fellow Democrat in a race where the two have competed to woo progressive voters.

However, Republicans did avoid a potential lockout in the governor’s race after Donald Trump weighed in. The Democratic lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, had long been the frontrunner but Republicans were concerned that the former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, another Democrat, would block them from having a candidate for governor in the largest state in the nation, potentially depressing GOP turnout in November.

Trump tweeted in support of John Cox, a Republican businessman who had previously mounted a quixotic campaign for the presidency in 2008. Cox finished a solid second, although he is not expected to pose a challenge to Newsom in November.

Republicans did notch up one clear win on Tuesday night. Josh Newman, a Democratic state senator, was recalled on Tuesday over his support for increased gas taxes. The result deprives Democrats of a supermajority in the California state senate and is a promising sign for state Republicans who hope to put an initiative to overturn the state’s gas tax increase on the November ballot.