Democ­rats flip key Cal­i­for­nia House races against nation­al tide

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Democrats flip key California House races against national tide

Last month’s elec­tion was bruis­ing for Democ­rats in most of the coun­try, but there was a sil­ver lin­ing for par­ty mem­bers with some key races for seats in the House.

In Cal­i­for­nia, Democ­rats won sev­er­al cru­cial bat­tle­ground House races and flipped three Repub­li­can-held seats, which helped them shrink the GOP’s slim major­i­ty in the House.

Rep.-elect Adam Gray (D‑CA) defeat­ed Rep. John Duarte (R‑CA) in the final House race pro­ject­ed by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, with the out­let pro­ject­ing Gray as the win­ner by less than 200 votes ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing. The vic­to­ry capped off a trio of key wins that saw Democ­rats suc­cess­ful­ly oust Reps. Michelle Steel (R‑CA) and Mike Gar­cia (R‑CA), in addi­tion to Duarte.

Repub­li­cans were able to hold seats held by Reps. David Val­adao (R‑CA) and Ken Calvert (R‑CA), but Democ­rats also held on to bat­tle­ground seats in their con­trol. Rep. Mike Levin (D‑CA) won reelec­tion to his seat, while Rep.-elect David Min (D‑CA) won the race to suc­ceed out­go­ing Rep. Katie Porter (D‑CA).

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic vic­to­ries came despite Cal­i­for­nia shift­ing toward Trump this elec­tion, and they bucked a nation­al trend that saw Trump increase his sup­port across the coun­try com­pared with four years ago.

Key flips in blue states, where Repub­li­cans won or held key House dis­tricts in 2022, helped Democ­rats thwart Repub­li­can attempts to increase their House major­i­ty. In Ore­gon, New York, and most notably Cal­i­for­nia, Repub­li­cans per­formed worse in House con­tests than the rest of the coun­try.

In Duarte’s dis­trict, vot­ers picked Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion but vot­ed for Repub­li­cans in the 2022 Sen­ate and guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tions. The state’s 13th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict is pri­mar­i­ly Hispanic/Latino, accord­ing to the U.S. Cen­sus Bureau, at rough­ly 66% of the pop­u­la­tion, while 21% is white and 6.6% is Asian. The razor-thin race showed the tight­ness of the dis­trict in how it votes in elec­tions.

Steel lost her south­ern Cal­i­for­nia seat in a dis­trict where there is a sig­nif­i­cant Viet­namese pop­u­la­tion, some­thing Rep.-elect Derek Tran (D‑CA) was able to lean into with his own Viet­namese her­itage.

“As the first Viet­namese Amer­i­can ever elect­ed to rep­re­sent the Viet­namese dias­po­ra of Lit­tle Saigon, he’s ready to fight for liv­ing wages, pro­tect a woman’s right to an abor­tion, and pre­serve the Amer­i­can Dream. The DCCC is proud of our role in help­ing elect Derek to Con­gress, and I look for­ward to work­ing along­side him,” Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Suzan Del­Bene (D‑WA) said in a state­ment about Tran’s vic­to­ry.

The most vul­ner­a­ble of the Cal­i­for­nia Repub­li­cans going into the elec­tion was Gar­cia, who defeat­ed Demo­c­rat Christy Smith three con­sec­u­tive times but lost his race last month to Rep.-elect George White­sides (D‑CA).

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His 27th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict vot­ed for Biden in 2020 and split between Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates in the 2022 guber­na­to­r­i­al and Sen­ate races, and was rat­ed as hav­ing a par­ti­san vot­ing index of Demo­c­ra­t­ic +4, accord­ing to the Cook Polit­i­cal Report.

The dis­trict, which is in the north­ern part of Los Ange­les Coun­ty, vot­ed for the Demo­c­rat, send­ing Gar­cia out of the House despite the entire coun­ty at large shift­ing 11% toward Trump in the pres­i­den­tial race com­pared to the 2020 elec­tion.