Rallies, Taxes and Bus Tours: Down to the Wire in Orange County

IRVINE, Calif. — The battle for control of Congress started in Southern California nearly a year ago — in a handful of districts represented by Republicans where Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, drew more votes than President Donald Trump. With Election Day around the corner, these races remain among the most heavily contested in the nation, and polls show most of them up for grabs.

Orange County has historically been a symbol of Republicanism — it is the birthplace of Richard Nixon — but its political composition has changed considerably over the past 10 years, reflecting the demographic shifts that have taken place across much of California.

There are seven Republican-held seats in California that are viewed as vulnerable, and five of them are in or near Orange County. Their incumbents include some of the most conservative members of Congress, like Dana Rohrabacher and Darrell Issa (who is retiring this year), as well as Mimi Walters and Steve Knight, whose district is farther to the north in Los Angeles. (Another Southern California Republican who has drawn much attention — Duncan Hunter of San Diego, who was indicted earlier this year — does not appear to be as vulnerable.)

With these critical California battles in their final days, here is a look at some of the forces worth watching.

Republican leaders, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, faced a steep challenge at the start of the year: How to turn out Republican voters in California at a time of huge Democratic interest driven by anger with Trump, with no Republican candidate for Senate and no real shot at the governorship.

Their response is a ballot initiative that would repeal a gasoline tax passed by the Democratic-controlled state legislature last year over Republican objections. The ballot initiative unnerved Democrats, given that the only things less popular in California than taxes are gasoline taxes.

But it looks as though the idea is not working out so well. Polls suggests that the repeal is headed to defeat, opposed by a coalition including labor, business and environmental leaders. A survey by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, released last week found the initiative losing by a wide margin, 56 percent to 40 percent. Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, raised $40 million to defeat the repeal initiative, while proponents raised just $2.5 million.

The governor made a rare election-season appearance Friday to campaign against it. “Governor joins fray — but only for gas tax,” read the front-page headline in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Republican leaders, facing tough races up and down the state, decided to spend their money on their candidates rather than on the repeal initiative. And some Democratic candidates tried to outmaneuver the Republicans by coming out in favor of repeal.

“I made it clear that I opposed the gas tax on the grounds that it’s too regressive,” said Katie Porter, a Democrat from Irvine in a very tight race against Walters. “This was not a good time to be increasing the price that people pay at the pump.”

Carl DeMaio, a Republican and former San Diego council member who is leading the repeal campaign, all but conceded defeat for his initiative, and blamed Republican leaders for walking away from it. “I don’t believe the Republican Party is using the gas tax issue as well as they should,” he said.

One thing to keep in mind: For national Republicans, the goal here was not really to repeal the gas tax, but to draw a few more anti-gas-tax Republicans to the polls in crucial districts, where they would presumably vote for the Republican candidates. There have been rallies and leafleting about it in the districts where Republicans are struggling for survival. So in very close races, the repeal initiative could end up winning, even as it is losing.

Matthew Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said the gas tax illustrated the divide between Republicans and Democrats who controlled the California government, and would prove critical for congressional candidates Tuesday.

As she stood in front of a half- dozen reporters on a recent morning, Young Kim boasted of her endorsements, her experience working as an aide to the congressman who represented the district for decades, and her independent streak. The news conference lasted 20 minutes, and was conducted entirely in Korean.

Political and cultural transformations have swept across much of Southern California, and changed the dynamics in hard-fought races. None illustrates the changing face of Southern California’s suburbs better than the race in the 39th Congressional District, where Kim, a Republican, is running against Henry Cisneros, a Mexican-American who is seeking office for the first time. It is another of the super-tight California contests.

Asians now make up about 22 percent of the district’s population, and Kim has relied heavily on her biography: Her parents left Korea in the 1940s and raised her in Guam and Hawaii, where she often served as their translator.

“Most Democrats don’t know what to make of me,” she said. “I am a different kind of Republican — I am an immigrant. We have achieved our American dream, we see hope and possibility and positive change.”

The district straddles northern Orange County, eastern Los Angeles County and a slice of San Bernardino. All those places have become magnets for immigrants and their children to settle, buy homes and open businesses in strip malls that often evoke architecture from Asia and Latin America.

Cisneros moved to Yorba Linda, one of the wealthiest cities in the district and Richard Nixon’s birthplace, after winning a lottery jackpot. He used some of his winnings to run an education foundation, and then decided he was willing to pour millions of dollars into a campaign for Congress. His motivation, he said, came entirely after Trump was elected.

“If Young Kim goes to Washington, she is going to be a rubber stamp for the president,” Cisneros said in an interview at his field office in Brea. “That is certainly not what this district needs or wants.”

California Democrats sent two of their biggest guns — Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor, and Sen. Kamala Harris — to Southern California this weekend for a final round of get-out-the-vote rallies on behalf of the party’s congressional candidates.

“We’re almost there — the finish line is right there,” Newsom shouted to a crowd at a hotel in Irvine Saturday afternoon, standing next to Porter. “Everything we’ve done to date won’t mean much if we don’t turn it on and turn it out on election night, and send a message to Donald Trump.”

Harris drew big cheers from the overwhelmingly Democratic crowds. A sign reading “Kamala 2020” could be seen at the rally in Santa Clarita, where she was appearing on behalf of Katie Hill, the Democratic challenger to Knight.

“This is a moment of time that requires us to fight for the best of who we are, so fight we will,” she said. “If it’s health care for all, let’s have that fight. If it’s civil rights for all, let’s have that fight. If it’s accepting science and getting rid of climate change, let’s have that fight.”

This being California, Republicans could not quite match the Democrats when it comes to high-profile state elected officials. (Nor in celebrity power: Chelsea Handler, the comedian, was on hand at the rally in Irvine.) Democrats hold an overwhelming edge in party registration in the state and control every statewide office.

But Republicans made an effort. John Cox, the Republican running against Newsom, announced his own bus tour that included appearances with Kim and Knight. Cox talked taxes and spending on what he called his “Help Is On the Way” tour.

The question heard most often — of course — is who is going to win. That’s unanswerable, but here are a few things to consider.

The New York Times has been conducting tracking polls in five competitive Southern California districts since Labor Day. The polls show all of them within the margin of error (though some of the polling is a few weeks old), with one exception: Mike Levin, a Democrat, seems well on his way to defeating Diane Harkey, a Republican, for the 49th District the seat now held by Issa. That was always one of the top Democratic targets, and Levin, an environmental activist, has been running there for a long time.

But another Republican who Democrats thought was ripe for an upset, Rohrabacher — one of Trump’s most ardent defenders in Congress — also appears to be very much in the game as he fights off a challenge from Harley Rouda, a former Republican turned Democrat.

One final word of warning: it may not quite be over when it’s over. California is notoriously slow at counting ballots — particularly as the state has moved increasingly toward mail-in voting. In the June primary, two-thirds of the ballots were cast by mail.

Elections officials have until Dec. 7 — you read that correctly — to certify the results.