Democratic state Sen. Kevin de León has represented part of Los Angeles in Sacramento for more than a decade, but he failed to secure a majority of votes on his home turf in the U.S. Senate primary this week.
With 2 million votes left to be counted, it’s an early indicator of how difficult the former state Senate leader may find it to challenge Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has represented California in Washington for over a quarter of a century.
The preliminary, uncertified results show De León received 34% in the 24th Senate District. Feinstein won the district with 44%.
Democrat Mike Levin has advanced to the general election and will take on Republican Diane Harkey in the race to replace GOP Rep. Darrell Issa in the 49th Congressional District.
The district — which includes southern Orange County and northern San Diego — is one of Democrats’ biggest pickup opportunities.
Issa won reelection by just 1,621 votes in 2016, the closest reelection of any House member that year. After that, Democratic activists in the district were energized, holding weekly rallies outside Issa’s office for more than a year and spending months registering and reaching out to voters.
Democrats appeared to largely dodge a major threat in California by securing spots on the ballot in almost all of the competitive House seats they want to win in order to retake control of Congress.
But, so far, it looks like the party will be locked out of a Republican-held seat in the eastern desert portion of the state. Incumbent Paul Cook (R-Yucca Valley) and former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, who previously challenged Cook, are in the top two slots.
Though the district was not officially targeted by Democrats, Marge Doyle raised a serious amount of money in her campaign. But she’s looking like the odd candidate out in the GOP-leaning district, where 37% of voters are registered Republicans, 32% are Democrats and 22% have no party preference. Voters backed President Trump over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 15 percentage points in the district two years ago and Cook was reelected 62% to 38%.
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, fresh off his first-place showing in yesterday’s primary election, was in a chipper enough mood on Wednesday to lavish his competitors with compliments.
On Antonio Villaraigosa, his closest Democratic opponent whose backers drew Newsom into a costly battle on the airwaves, the lieutenant governor was insistent the campaign left no hard feelings.
“I’ve long respected Antonio — and I mean that,” Newsom told reporters at San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace. “Listen, he’s a competitive guy, he’s got incredible political talent.”
Democrat Gavin Newsom and Republican John Cox will face off in the November election for governor. An analysis of voting results shows which counties voted heavily for a Democrat and which favored a Republican in that race.
The rise in voting by mail has made it much tougher for local governments to calculate voter turnout. That challenge is magnified in places such as Los Angeles County, where a majority of votes could be cast by mail in this election.
As such, it takes more time.
As of early Wednesday, county officials had counted just over 952,633 ballots. Of those, about 30% were mail ballots.
Stacey Dash may have called it quits on her congressional run, a quick flameout from the “Clueless” actress-turned-conservative commentator who heated up an otherwise placid reelection bid by freshman Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-San Pedro).
Could the contest be getting interesting again?
Compton Mayor Aja Brown jumped into the race as Dash brought the bright attention of celebrity blogs to California’s 44th Congressional District in February. She said Dash was a motivating factor in her decision to jump in the race.
California’s most wide-open primary in two decades ended Tuesday with contests from governor to seats in the U.S. House that seemed focused, even fixated at times, on the race for second place.
Actor and model Antonio Sabato Jr. has clinched second place in the race for a congressional seat to represent most of Ventura County.
Sabato, a vocal supporter of President Trump who spoke at the 2016 GOP national convention, was leading fellow Republican Jeffrey Burum by more than 2,000 votes Wednesday morning when the Associated Press called the race.
Sabato, who appeared on the ballot simply as Antonio Sabato, will face incumbent Democrat Julia Brownley, who had more than double Sabato’s vote tally in the primary as of Wednesday morning.