California Results Are Consistent With a Competitive House Race

The results of the California top-two primary elections Tuesday won’t be final for weeks, but the initial returns offer a useful if rough indicator of the general election.

Overall, the results were in line with national expectations for November: a competitive, if perhaps Democratic-tilting, race for the House.

The results were not as good for Democrats as the special congressional elections over the last year. But they’re consistent with recent so-called wave elections, like those in 2006 or 2010.

It is a little premature to analyze the data in California. The count tends to drift toward Democrats (late ballots tend to come from younger, less regular and Democratic voters).

But if we take the results as they are, and keep in mind that they may move 0.5 of a point toward the Democrats, a fairly clear picture emerges.

The results of the top-two primary have typically been a useful indicator for the general election, because any voter can cast a ballot for any candidate.

But the crucial things to know are that the results are fairly accurate (an average error of 3 percentage points on major party vote share, with occasional outliers) and somewhat biased toward the Republicans (because primary turnout is typically older and whiter than general electorate turnout).

If this is a wave environment like in 2006 or 2010, which would probably make the Democrats slight to modest favorites to retake the House, it shouldn’t be too hard to tell. Seat by seat, Democrats would probably be pretty close to half the vote in the seven California districts that Hillary Clinton won in Republican territory in 2016.

Perhaps Democrats would claim an outright lead in a district or two of the seven, like California’s 49th or 39th. Given the historical Republican bias in the primary results, that would make the Democratic candidate a 2-to-1 (or better) favorite to win in the general election. A district like California’s 10th or 48th might be close. California’s 21st and 45th might lean Republican, but it would be close enough — say, with Republicans claiming around 53 percent of the ballots — that the Democrats would be in range of a victory in a general election.

Democrats claimed an outright majority of votes in California’s 49th, which makes them clear favorites to win the district in the general election. In five other districts, the Democrats received between 45 percent and 48 percent of the major party vote, setting up races that could be characterized as tossups or leaning Republican, just as they’re currently rated by the Cook Political Report.

There was one notable outlier: California’s 21st, represented by the Republican David Valadao. Valadao currently holds 64 percent of the vote, a tally that, historically, would make him all but a lock to win the general election.

It would probably be a mistake to completely write off a competitive race in the 21st District, where Clinton won by double digits. This is the least-educated congressional district in the country, and Hispanic voters make up a majority of the electorate. Turnout was extremely low. Absentee ballot data indicates that the turnout was particularly weak among Democrats and Hispanic voters. According to Political Data Inc., Democrats had just a 3-point edge in returned ballots, compared with their 19-point advantage among those who received a ballot in the mail. Similarly, Latinos made up 38 percent of returns, compared with 60 percent of the mailed ballots.

The low Hispanic turnout in the Central Valley dragged down Democrats across the board, like the incumbent Democratic congressman Jim Costa in the neighboring 16th District (who claimed 53 percent of the vote, with a stronger Democratic turnout), and the Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas, who only won 48 percent of the vote. Maybe Democrats will make more gains here in the late balloting than elsewhere.

Democrats, obviously, can’t feel great about low Hispanic turnout. But of the reasons to fall well short of expectations in a district, it’s probably one of the less discouraging ones. It’s not likely to repeat itself elsewhere, and Democrats can reasonably hope for a stronger turnout in the general election. After all, Salas and Costa presumably remain heavy favorites in the general election, despite their close contests. If that’s true, Valadao should still be considered vulnerable.

But Valadao’s wide margin is probably large enough to merit a modest, tentative reassessment. No congressional candidate has lost a general election in Washington (since 1990) or California while receiving such a large share of the major party vote in a top-two primary. The demographic peculiarities of the 21st District make it easier to imagine weird things happening here, but at the moment it seems like a stretch to characterize this race as merely “leaning Republican.”

And it’s not as if low Democratic turnout was Valadao’s only source of strength: His opponent doesn’t live in the district, and Valadao’s moderate stance on immigration should help distinguish himself from the national party.

For all the same reasons, though, it would probably be a mistake to take California’s 21st as a particularly representative indicator of the national political environment.

The balance of evidence then seems fairly clear. Democrats appear poised to make broad gains. Previously vulnerable Democrats, like the perennially vulnerable Ami Bera, seem poised to win by comfortable margins. Typically safe Republican districts claimed by Clinton, like Mimi Walters’ 45th District, look extremely competitive. On the basis of these results overall, there’s not much need to rethink the national political environment or the fight for control of the House.