Media getting giddy over a special election out in California CD-25 vote pitting, Christy Smith, an Democrat against , Mike Garcia, a Republican, in a district that that has turned more minority in recent years…*
The seat was vacated by former Representative Katie Hill , a white female, due her sexual situation with a staffer
Vote was by mail-in ballot…
The minority mail-ins where much less then the white ones even as the district has turned slightly more minority…Garcia ran as a solid Trump supporter…
There will be a rematch in November…
*Update…Garcia has claimed victory ….
In many ways, Tuesday’s special election in California’s 25th Congressional District to choose the successor to former Representative Katie Hill is a microcosm of national politics right now, and a harbinger of what’s to come in November, when many states are expected to move toward vote-by-mail elections amid the pandemic.
The race between Christy Smith, a Democrat and longtime elected official, and her Republican opponent, Mike Garcia, a former pilot and current defense contractor, has become increasingly nasty as they have battled on the airwaves while confined to their homes….
| County | Garcia | Smith | Rpt. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles |
59,787
|
47,923
|
79% |
| Ventura |
20,550
|
15,075
|
61 |
image…foxla.com
Political Polls
@PpollingNumbers
#CA25 Special Election (100% Reporting)
Mike Garcia (R) 56.05% Heavy check mark
Christy Smith (D) 43.95%
@DecisionDeskHQ
Clinton Won The District By 7 Points In 2016, And Katie Hill (D) Won it by 9 points in 2018
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Political Polls
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· 6h
BREAKING:
Mike Garcia (R) Defeats
Christy Smith (D) In #CA25 Special Election
Flipping The Seat From Blue To Red
The Democrat lost. To paraphrase Richard J. Daley, my candidate didn’t get enough votes. Smith wasn’t a great candidate. But, she will win in November given that this is California.
Here’s my take:
1. It is a 50/50 district, not overwhelmingly Democratic, and was always represented by Republicans in its current configuration until Katie Hill won there in the 2018 wave election.
2 The GOP electorate is mostly older, whiter and more settled. Those types of voters vote in every election. The Democratic electorate in the district skews younger and more Hispanic (and some African-American). Those types of voters often don’t vote in mid-terms, and especially don’t vote in special elections.
3. Katie Hill had a really great GOTV, a positive profile and a national wave atmosphere behind her. That’s how she won by 9 points over the incumbent, who tried to separate himself from Trump and ended up bedeviled by both sides. She had it all going for her, and her opponent was fucking up big-time.
4. Mike Garcia is a son of poor Mexican immigrants, a former fighter pilot and a political novice with an inspiring message. He also has no political record and the support of Trump and the local GOP. He had it all going for him in the runoff.
5. Christy Smith is a state representative who voted for a controversial tax measure that pissed off a lot of gig economy workers, of whom there are a fair share in this district. She also made light of Garcia’s military service, which is a major own goal no matter what you do. She was fucking up big-time in this race. And then Covid-19 scrambled her GOTV.
What does this all mean? It means that, in evenly matched districts, candidates matter first and foremost. It means that Democrats need to GOTV (please explain what that is James) in a big way if their target electorate is disproportionately young, Hispanic or African American (or all three). And it means that association with Trump isn’t necessarily the kiss of death if a GOP candidate has other things going in his favor.
This was a disappointing loss since it was a Democratic-held seat and the Democrat certainly had a shot, unlike WI-7 where the real goal was to hold margins down in an overwhelmingly red district. The bad news is that the same two candidates are on the ballot on November 3. The good news is that presumably many more Democrats will turn out that day to vote against Trump, and Garcia might sink with Trump’s negative coattails. The real question is how to run an effective GOTV for this district and similar ones around the country in light of a public health crisis. Serious people will ponder that last one instead of bullshitting about this or that factoid.
Disappointing outcome, but what does Garcia think about injecting Lysol?
The Democrats need to figure out how to reach out through the mail in ballot process without door-to-door canvassing. The Republicans need to explain how they think it’s fine to have Grandma die for the economy.
Herbert Hoover lives today in the White House. What happened the last time that happened?
Wow, Keith’s strongest most sensible post ever. Crazy times.
Sensible? There is nothing sensible about your fucking party Corey Ray.
They support a mentally defective President even when he encourages people to go to work and die.
You’re impressed, you should be ashamed for supporting this racist cabal all these years.
This race is a prediction I got wrong, but I did so months ago.
This election took place under very unusual circumstances and special elections sometimes yield big surprises, but just about everyone thought the Democrat would win this district. Republicans had not flipped a House seat in California in 22 years. The margin is even more surprising.
Garcia may be a strong candidate in general. If he survives November, he is probably secure there for a bit, but this is probably a larger political sign that anti-Trump voters are not going to necessarily just vote to automatically punish others down the ballot with an R next to their name
I thought maybe the Democrat would win by single digits and Republicans would claim a moral victory that it was so close in this Los Angeles based district.
Instead, the Republican won outright, by double digits. It’s definitely surprising.
Democrats counting on people mailing in ballots (and having it be an equal footing situation with the other side) better make really sure that their voters are willing to do that.
It says that only 19 percent of voters under 35 returned a ballot. Democrats better take heed of that. Young people these days are just not used to “snail mail.”
Speaking of mail, I finally got my check. I just need to white out Trump’s name now..
Don’t spend it in one place ….
Two things u probably didn’t account for like others CG….
The district demographics changed just like the Crowley/AOC race in Queens, NYC
It has tipped to be minority majority…
Also…
The mail in ballot advantage was substantial for Garcia…
The minority…
particularly Latino’s didn’t vote by mail…
That doesn’t make any sense considering Latinos have become heavily Democrat, especially in California. The district is becoming more Democrat. They just did not have the motivation to vote here.
Perhaps some Latinos voted for Garcia because he is one. That’s why it is good for a political party to be seen as diverse.
Not a lot of California Republicans are going to win this November obviously, but among all their nominees, it is remarkable how racially and ethnically diverse they are this year.
OR?
They just didn’t want to sign the ballot and vote CG….
Democrats or not…
And they WOULD be voting against a fellow latino, eh?
I don’t think Garcia being Latino would have been a huge factor.
Democrats were not motivated to vote here by mail. Apparently, they were motivated to take a risk and vote in person in Wisconsin. Republicans seemed to be more motivated to vote here. Maybe they were much better organized. Maybe they are ticked off about the “shutdowns.”
I guess Democrats have to consider how most people will be voting in November and determine how to increase motivation. They will not win unless there is a large turnout of voters under 40.
I do NOT agree….
Latino’s did NOT come out to vote against one of their own…
But yet Latinos in Texas (a more conservative state) voted in high very numbers against Ted Cruz in 2018?
It hasn’t been working that way. Sure, Garcia might have done better than Steve Knight did in that district, but I would assume that the Democrat easily won the Latino vote in that district. It just wasn’t a good “turnout” for Democrats in general.
As I said, older people like those of us here (even me I guess), are far more used to putting things in the mailbox. Kids these days …. “what’s an envelope…?”
Whether accurate or not, this surprising result in CA 25 is also going to give credence to a conservative belief about vote by mail issues, especially as it relates to the voting in California always swinging heavily to Democrats after election day when those votes come in.
The belief is there is organized “ballot harvesting” going on there among Democrats (The same thing that caused that whole kerfuffle in 2018 in the North Carolina district that negated an entire election.)
The theory is that Democrat operatives go around to houses that received ballots in the mail and collect them from the people who might not even have voted, and fill them out themselves for the Democrats and then send a whole bunch in at once. Needless, to say, this would be illegal, just as it was in North Carolina for the Republican.
Now, due to the virus, nobody was able to go door to door to do that. People had to actually vote.
There WILL be a round 2 in November when there WILL be more voting….
Dem’s will hunting for the seat …for SURE…
But Smith IS gonna have toileting chase things up…
It’s a different district….
Usually, the special election winner wins in November. See Connor Lamb as an example.
Maybe that will be different in November, but Garcia does seem to have won by 12 points, so that has to be considered.
It’s a different district in that it is far more Democrat than it used to be.
It used to be a solidly white Republican district. Based on the demographics alone, the Democrat should have won.
This is the most pro-Clinton district to currently be held by a Republican.
I’m sure Trump will crow about this. As CG is here. Understandably, they are both Republicans and this was a rare Republican win in California.
This was of less consequence than last month’s landslide loss by the conservative in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That was a race that highlighted Republican efforts to suppress the vote in a swing state–and it backfired on them terribly.
CG didn’t comment on that one. “Busy”, I’m sure.
Not crowing about the CA race, just commenting, I said my prediction was wrong.
I did also comment on the WI race, more than once.
And yes, extremely busy.
I do recall you were opposed to the Republican effort to suppress the vote by forcing in person voting in a pandemic, but I don’t recall you seeing that it was a harbinger for the whole of the GOP. Considering voting suppression as as Republican as tax cuts for the rich hard to see where it wasn’t.
I commented on the results at the time. Last night, I compared the CA results to the WI result. The whole “harbinger for the whole” is always overstated by partisans on both sides. I cannot help it if you miss a post. I miss some too with the unfortunate threading format here.
Fair enough. I see more correlation between Wisconsin and the general election as the voter suppression attempted there is the GOP’s M.O. and has been for quite some time. That it backfired on them so spectacularly should raise some flags for Republicans if they think they can suppress the vote to their benefit in other states.
I see no general themes in the special California race that can be extrapolated overall. It was a 50/50 district and Republicans had a better candidate.