There weren’t that many questions at the top of the ticket headed into Super Tuesday. The presidential race is set: Donald Trump was only slightly more challenged by Nikki Haley, who has since dropped out, than Joe Biden was by “uncommitted” protest voters objecting to his Israel policy. Their rematch is now formally—as it has been practically for a long time—certain.
But in California, the country’s largest state by population and bluest state by reputation, there was plenty of intrigue: a super high-dollar U.S. Senate race; primaries in numerous, swingy congressional races in both directions that could decide control of the House; a handful of notable ballot measures. The result: a profound Republican turnout boom and rightward shift, a mini red wave that has some Democrats nervous for November and pointing the finger at the state’s newest (unofficial) senator-elect.
The top California race Tuesday night was the primary to replace the deceased Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both to finish out her term through January and to succeed her fully after that. In that race, things went exactly according to plan for Rep. Adam Schiff, the longtime moderate and deepest-pocketed Democrat. Schiff, armed with $35 million of his own, plus millions in outside spending support from conservative groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent himself and Republican Steve Garvey, who didn’t have a real campaign and never aired a TV ad of his own, to the finish line.
Remember California’s odd jungle primary system: The top two finishers in every race, regardless of party, head to a runoff in November. Schiff calculated, rightly, that a November showdown statewide against a Republican—an extremely weak one at that—amounted to a sure general-election win. And so he spent lavishly to boost Garvey’s name and targeted Republican voters to produce a turnout boomlet on Garvey’s behalf. The hope was to drag Garvey, seemingly against even his will, into the top two and to keep Schiff’s Democratic challengers, Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, either of whom would be much more competitive against Schiff in a runoff, out of it.
It worked! Republicans turned out in droves—Garvey actually came in first in the race to finish out Feinstein’s term and a close second in the race for the full six years. (Why the separate ballot lines yielded differing results is unclear, but that’s what the California secretary of state’s office has tallied.)
And then those Republicans voted Republican all the way down the ticket, as voters do. The result, for California Democrats in House races—you know, Schiff’s former and would-be colleagues—was ominous. Turnout was low, but in nearly every race national Democrats are hoping to flip or protect come November, California Republicans put on performances that, if reproduced, would augur catastrophe. One Democratic campaign staffer in a swing district put it to me succinctly: “terrible Dem turnout … people ready to blame Schiff.”
In California’s 22nd District, a Biden-won district where David Valadao, one of the last remaining Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, looks shaky, Democrats were biting their nails. Valadao had a Republican challenger, Chris Mathys, and Schiff’s campaign to boost Republican turnout made it increasingly likely that both of those Republicans would finish in the top two, locking out Democrats in a seat they felt very likely to win. (Democrat Melissa Hurtado was splitting votes with Democratic favorite Rudy Salas.)
That worst-case scenario was narrowly avoided. Salas squeaked by Mathys by just over 1,000 votes, while Valadao romped. But the combined Republican vote share of 55 percent looks dreadful for Democrats in November.
In the state’s 47th District, a seat currently held and soon to be vacated by Porter, Democrats avoided a catastrophe, but Republicans did well there too. Republican Scott Baugh led the pack with 33 percent of the vote; lead Democratic challenger Dave Min, endorsed by Porter, weathered a $5 million spending onslaught from the Republican-funded United Democracy Project, a super PAC of AIPAC, to finish in second. Min becomes one of the only Democrats to survive an AIPAC independent expenditure blitz across two cycles; AIPAC is off to a 0-for-1 start to its $100 million campaign to pick winners in Democratic primaries.
But between Baugh and a second Republican candidate, Max Ukropina, Republicans pulled more than 48 percent of the vote; Min and AIPAC-backed Democrat Joanna Weiss shared 43 percent. Min may be stronger for having already endured so many attack ads that didn’t stick enough to down him, but he may be wounded as well.
Elsewhere in Orange County was even worse. In the 45th District, another Biden-won enclave, incumbent Republican Michelle Steel dominated the field with 57 percent of the vote, despite supporting some of the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the country, including a national ban and some illegalization of IVF—in a blue district! She looks as if she’ll run in the general against Democrat Derek Tran, who eked out a second-place victory, thanks to a fundraising advantage, over the state Democratic Party’s pick, Kim Nguyen-Penaloza. Despite being a high-priority race shortlisted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 57 percent would indicate that this district is far out of reach for November.
In California’s 27th District, just north of Schiff’s own Burbank, the result was even more jarring. National Democrats have repeatedly targeted this Biden-won district as a red-to-blue flip opportunity, and they pulled out the stops to clear the field for Democrat George Whitesides to take on Republican incumbent Mike Garcia, who did not vote to impeach Trump. On Tuesday, Garcia ran away with 59 percent of the vote.
And in Palm Springs’ 41st, another seat Democrats are hoping to flip, incumbent Republican Ken Calvert also won more than 50 percent of the vote.
The result was just as bad for progressive causes even further down ballot. After Tuesday, the right-wing takeover of San Francisco looks complete with the sweep of three tough-on-crime, criminalization-of-poverty measures straight out of the 1990s. “Voters make it clear: San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city,” reads an instructive San Francisco Chronicle piece about that result. The city already has a relatively conservative (though Democratic) mayor and district attorney, but the radical rightward lurch of the tech industry continues to impress upon the city’s politics.
It would be a best-case scenario if this were all the result of future Sen. Schiff’s cynical, self-serving electioneering; state and national Democrats are telling themselves that story today to take the edge off. But if that turnout campaign ends up having a lasting effect—if Republican voters in California wake up to the impact they had today and decide they will stay engaged come November—the road to a Democratic House majority goes from difficult to near impossible. Schiff will have left the House behind, but left it in shambles.
