Will Republicans do the “unthinkable” and flip a congressional seat in California?
May 12 is finally here, and Judgement Day in the first competitive race in a purple congressional district of 2020 in head-to-head Democrat vs. Republican match-up.
While control of the House of Representatives is not at stake today, November 3 will be on everyone’s mind when the votes are counted to see how a runoff special election for a vacant congressional seat in the middle of a pandemic and the voters’ reactions.
While many commenters on McHenry County Blog last week said this seat has been a Republican seat for 20 years prior to Katie Hill flipping it for Democrats in 2018 and will have no impact in the 6th/14th districts of Illinois, it will have impacts across the country simply by the pandemic itself.
The race is rated by nearly every authoritative source as a “toss-up”, but given the latest metrics of returned ballots, many are starting to rate this race as “tilts R” or “leans R” based on the trend of demographics and political party affiliation of registered voters returning their ballots:
Based on the number of completed Vote by Mail (VBM) ballots returned to the voter registrars of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, 10,643 more VBM ballots have been cast by Republican voters opposed to Democrats. California is a closed-primary state, and voters must declare a political party when registering to vote.
The independent/3rd party ballots, according to additional analysis, breaks even between independents from a Republican household opposed to a Democratic household.
Over the weekend, these headlines were seen in various publications:
Bottom right published in POLITICO May 9, 2020
So what possible learnings from CA-25 be learned that can be reapplied across the country? Here are three thus far:
Glimpse of all VBM elections with no traditional campaign events
Given the pandemic and Governor Gavin Newsom’s Stay at Home order, this general election in CA-25 was a campaign without door-to-door canvassing, public events and lots of ZOOM/virtual events including one candidates’ forum
Even the traditional California-style Ballot Harvesting has been neutralized due to the pandemic. Given how Governor Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan and its 5 phases, the kind of campaigning which took place in California will be part of Illinois through the month of July.
Issues Matter
While the Democrats took a predictable track of trying to paint Republican Garcia as a “Trump sychophant”, and to a lesser degree, Republicans painting Smith as a “Pelosi puppet”, issues, in particular, one issue stood out against Smith, who’s a member of the California Assembly — Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) and its impact to workers all across California being exacerbated by the job losses of the pandemic.
This meme lays out how Smith’s vote on AB5, which was passed and signed by Governor Newsom last year and effective at the first of the year, had on workers and was used against Smith:
And proving “how California goes so does the rest of the nation”, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proved it by passing the Federal version of AB5, H.R. 2474, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. Both Congressman Sean Casten and Congresswoman Lauren Underwood voted in favor of its final passage back in early February in the House.
Congressman Casten commented on the PRO Act passage back on February 6:
“From 1980 to 2017, the average income for the bottom 90 percent of households increased just 1.1. percent, while the wealthiest 1 percent’s income increased more than 184 percent. It’s clear we’re leaving hardworking Americans in the dust. As families struggle to pay for health care, education, childcare, housing and various other necessities, it’s critical we strengthen our workers protections to help our middle class compete in this economy. Today, I was proud to vote for the PRO Act to lend a hand to our workers.”
Sean Casten statement, 2/6/20
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Casten’s press release said the PRO Act “…protects and expands workers’ power to stand together and negotiate for bigger paychecks, better benefits, and safer working conditions.”
Translation, this legislation was a sellout to Big Labor, and the union bosses pushed this bill through California’s legislature, and through the House of Representatives in Washington. Casten and Underwood did what Speaker Pelosi wanted, and no matter who wins the runoff, both Jeanne Ives and Jim Oberweis have a viable issue to use in the fall against Casten and Underwood, given the impact to California workers who usually don’t belong to unions.
This observation made in Twitter showed a valid point about the difference between Garcia and Smith, when party labels are put aside, and can be used in the fall:
Jennifer Van Laar, a deputy managing editor for RedState, noted Assembly District 38, which Smith vacated to run for Congress this fall. On primary day on March 3, Republicans flipped Smith’s Assembly seat since under California’s jungle primary where the top two vote getters in an all-party primary advance to the general election regardless of party, two Republicans face off in November to replace Smith.
AB5 is credited for the flip, in addition to the Democrats not finding viable candidates.
As was said in comments last week, Ives and Oberweis will be able to show their business management expertise and how market-driven mainstream business leaders deal with the challenge of classifying workers under current Federal labor laws.
Who is more unpopular in CA-25? President Trump? Speaker Pelosi? Neither
Turns out, former Congresswoman Katie Hill is more unpopular given it was her resignation last October that triggered the need for a special election, and this TV commercial released through Hill’s new HER Time PAC, observers said hurt Smith more than helped her:
The voting centers in California close at 10PM CDT, and then, or a day or two later, it will be known if the Republicans flipped a congressional seat in California for the first time since 1998.
External resources:
- Casten 2/6/20 press release, PRO Act: https://casten.house.gov/media/press-releases/casten-votes-strengthen-protections-workers
- Elections Daily preview of CA-25 runoff: https://elections-daily.com/2020/05/11/ca-25-judgement-day
Garcia will win, the libtards will see to that.
Why?
To lull stupid ass GOP into accepting national vote by mail, where GOP will be crushed.
DO NOT GO TO VOTE BY MAIL
Why do you think the enemy is pushing it so hard!
She had sex with her subordinates and is an alcoholic.
She resigned from office out of disgrace.
Her endorsement is like an anti-endorsement.
Look at those comments.
They’re brutal.
Why so many ballots mailed but not returned? Pretty Fishy.
Garcia will win and Republicans will flip this seat back to Red.
Southern California is sick of nonsense Newsome rules
No Vote by mail though, fraud too rampant.