California races will be pivotal in determining House control Los Angeles Times

Table Of Content

• San Joaquin Valley
• Democrats and durability
• TRUMP SUPPORTER SEEKS THIRD UPSET NORTH OF DEMOCRATIC LOS ANGELES
• Your guide to the California Congressional District 22 race: Rep. David Valadao vs. Rudy Salas
• Scott Baugh
• District 30
• McCarthy and Johnson are both conservative Christians. Only one is on the ‘front lines of the culture war’

The winner of the special election will serve in Congress until January 2025, when the next congressional term begins. With Republicans holding a razor-thin three-seat majority and California home to several swing seats, control of Congress in 2025 could very well be decided by voters in Golden State suburbs. Calvert brings the advantages of incumbency but his conservative credentials and support from Trump could be liabilities in a district that includes many transplanted Los Angeles residents and the city of Palm Springs, which has a large concentration of LGBTQ voters. They are the only candidates on the March 5 primary election ballot, setting up a rematch in the 13th District, which has a prominent Democratic tilt and a large Latino population. But the most likely voters tend to be white, older, more affluent homeowners, as is the case statewide. Districts in the sprawling region sometimes called America’s salad bowl typically have significant Democratic registration edges, but those seats are often held by Republicans.

San Joaquin Valley

California voters see Jan. 6 as a subplot compared with issues such as abortion and the economy ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The stances of Kevin Kiley and Kermit Jones, candidates in a vast California congressional district, on abortion, healthcare, immigration, gun laws. A case in point is Rep. David Valadao, a Republican who has endured despite facing steep registration deficits. Orange County’s 47th District runs along the California coast southeast of Los Angeles and was once the heart of “Reagan Country,” a region long synonymous with conservative politics and known for its ties to the former president.

Democrats and durability

She comes in at fifth on the longevity roster, having served one day shy of eight years from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. In 1989 Speaker Jim Wright of Texas resigned under pressure following revelations about a book deal the House Ethics Committee saw as circumventing fundraising rules. Longworth's successor, John "Cactus Jack" Garner of Texas, left the office after just over a year to be Franklin Roosevelt's first vice president. Prior to that, the last Republican speaker had been Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, who died in 1931. Technically, he died as speaker, but his party lost its majority before the next Congress convened and elected a Democrat to the job.

TRUMP SUPPORTER SEEKS THIRD UPSET NORTH OF DEMOCRATIC LOS ANGELES

This time, Rollins will be aided by the full backing of the Democratic Party and far more fundraising support. The fact that Tran is the son of Vietnamese immigrants and has a Vietnamese surname could help him build name recognition but won’t be determinative, DeSipio said. The district includes Orange County’s Little Saigon and Vietnamese Americans account for about 17% of voters, according to Political Data, Inc. Democrats have a narrow registration advantage, although no party preference registrants account for nearly a quarter of voters. Biden won the district by more than 10 percentage points over Trump in 2020, according to data from California Target Book.

The reason that isn’t likely, however, is because there aren’t that many GOP House seats in California to lose. California will lose a congressional seat next year, probably one now held by a Los Angeles County Democrat. House Republicans are seeking to unite their unruly majority around an evergreen conservative cause, devising a strict response to the wave of pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled college campuses across the country in recent weeks. Most of them served in that long stretch when their party held the majority for four decades. The most recent Democrat, however, is Nancy Pelosi, still a House member and the House speaker emerita.

The California Democratic Party-endorsed candidate dropped out before the filing deadline to avoid that scenario and threw his support behind Wood, who lost to McCarthy in 2022. Though McCarthy declined to certify some of the 2020 presidential election results, Johnson went a step further and rallied more than 100 Republicans to back his brief endorsing a lawsuit to overturn the election. Johnson has repeatedly backed measures to ban abortion nationwide and worked for a nonprofit, labeled an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, that defended the state-sanctioned sterilization of transgender people. Beyond the partisan sound and fury, there are also several fiercely competitive local House races in overwhelmingly Democratic districts, including the battles to fill departing Reps. Adam B. Schiff’s and Grace F. Napolitano’s seats in the Los Angeles area.

District 30

Protests continue at George Washington University after House Republicans spar with demonstrators - FOX 5 DC

Protests continue at George Washington University after House Republicans spar with demonstrators.

Posted: Thu, 02 May 2024 16:08:42 GMT [source]

The California congressional race between David Valadao and Rudy Salas is key to the balance of Republican or Democratic power in Congress. In the two months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, Republican candidates have been noticeably quiet on the abortion issue. Find out with these voting guides for local and California races and state propositions.

McCarthy and Johnson are both conservative Christians. Only one is on the ‘front lines of the culture war’

Stretching from northern Los Angeles County into the vast Angeles National Forest, this district is home to California’s glamorous art and entertainment industry. Including the Walt Disney Studios and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, film lovers in the City of Angels can hit most tourist attractions without leaving the district. Most are white, but the district boasts a sizable Asian and Latino population. While flush with campaign cash, Simon faces challengers Jennifer Tran, a professor and daughter of Vietnam War refugees; Tony Daysog, vice mayor of Alameda; and Denard Ingram, who serves on the city of Oakland’s rent board.

With 62 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Kennedy was beating Mr. Dickson by 34 percentage points, 67 to 33. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and George W. Bush lost it in 2000, yet both won enough support in the electoral college to win the White House. Critics argue that former President Trump’s success in changing state party rules, including in California, to benefit his candidacy harms voters. California has the most delegates of any state in the nation — roughly 14% of the number required for a Republican presidential candidate to secure the party’s nomination. “Even though it’s a very blue voter state, California still continues to produce a lot of really important dynamics in Republican politics,” he said. Brulte also noted that a number of the former president’s top donors live in California, and that he has raised an enormous amount of money in the state, as candidates of both major parties do.

That district, the 41st, is about equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. Former legislator Scott Baugh, who narrowly lost to Porter in 2022, is the leading Republican, while two Democrats are dueling to get on the November ballot, state Sen. David Min and Joanna Weiss, who founded an organization that promotes progressive candidates. Rep. Mike Garcia is the last Republican congressman anchored in heavily Democratic Los Angeles County. The once-conservative 27th District running through suburbs and high desert north of Los Angeles has become one of the country’s most competitive battlefields. One race that will have some new blood this year, after the same pair of candidates dueled in three previous elections, is California’s 27th Congressional District in northern Los Angeles County. In the San Joaquin Valley, there were last-minute fears that a bruising primary battle would lock Democrats out of one of the races where they have the best chance of flipping a seat, but those concerns proved overblown.

District where GOP volunteers fanned out for Baugh on primary morning, Democrats had sunk millions into a bruising primary battle between state Sen. Dave Min and fellow Democrat Joanna Weiss. Min ultimately emerged victorious, but only after surviving a barrage of negative advertising centered on his 2023 arrest for driving while intoxicated — arguably a gift to Republicans ahead of his fall battle with Baugh. The charismatic Porter will be out of the House picture after a failed Senate run; her seat is one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s three offensive targets in California and top priorities. It’s also where about two dozen GOP faithful gathered on the morning of election day, bowing their heads for a quick prayer and pledging allegiance to a portable flag before turning their attention to Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party. Barring divine intervention or the West Coast falling into the sea, President Biden will handily win California in the November election.

She expected her Republican colleagues would join her push to remove Mr. Johnson after getting an earful from their constituents. Immediately after the vote last weekend, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the right-wing Republican who threatened to oust Mr. Johnson for allowing the vote, predicted that her colleagues who backed the measure would have hell to pay. “We’re bankrupt, and if we can afford to send that kind of money to another country, we’re paying too much taxes,” Mr. Kirk said. More than 500 miles west, in Iowa City, Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a vulnerable Republican who won her district by six votes in 2020, had a similar experience. “Anything we can do to support the Ukrainian victory over the Russian invasion would be a positive thing for the world,” said Randy Manley, a retiree from Strongsville, Ohio, who said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump in November.

According to one Gallup poll conducted in March, 64% of Republicans approve of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, compared with 18% of Democrats and 29% of independents who said the same. Those figures dwarf Hostettler’s own fundraising numbers, as his campaign has reported bringing in $40,635 in donations across the election cycle to date. Messmer brought in nearly 20 times as much, reporting $763,290 in contributions so far. In some bright red districts, voters’ frustration was palpable over the weeklong recess after the vote.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who had already spent years raising money as he waited for this seat to open up, quickly jumped into the race and boasts Eshoo’s support. But all of them may ultimately trail Sam Liccardo, the former mayor of San Jose, which comprises the largest chunk of the district, providing him with a significant base of supporters. California is home to 10 races rated as competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report — five of them in districts that are represented by Republicans but that President Biden won in 2020.

With Kevin McCarthy heading for the exits, his Republican colleagues are bracing for a falloff in campaign support and loss of granular institutional knowledge that could leave them at a disadvantage heading into next fall’s elections. But other outside groups have rallied around his opponent Mesmer; the America Leads Action Super Pac has spent roughly $2m opposing Hostettler and more than $100,000 supporting Mesmer. A campaign ad from America Leads Action accuses Hostettler of advancing reckless fiscal policies during his time in Congress.

Speaking to a group of Republican donors in Orlando on Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touted his strength in the suburbs, his rural turnout effort and his appeal with Latino voters just one week after he cruised to victory in his reelection effort. Republican Sen. Rick Scott, the NRSC chair, said in a statement that the Senate GOP campaign arm is “more than happy” to discuss its spending with senators. Politico first reported that a couple of lawmakers — Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Thom Tillis — privately called for an audit of the NRSC on Tuesday. Utah Senator Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he has not called for an “audit” of the NRSC. But he would like to see an evaluation of its “initiatives,” “investments,” “fundraising” and payments to political consultants.