Super Tuesday Preview: California
The Golden State doesn't have any obvious surprises in the primary, but the results will still be a bellwether.
Super Tuesday is coming up on March 5th, and there are a lot of races to take into consideration. In this post, I will take a swing at California, where a Senate seat and 52 House seats will be on the ballot.
It is of note that California's primary elections are nonpartisan, and only the top two candidates advance to the General Election. This can produce contests between two candidates of the same party, and definitely has before.
Senate
After Dianne Feinstein(D) died last year, Gov. Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler to serve the remainder of her term, which ends on Jan 3, 2025. Butler has stated that she is not running for the seat, so it's open, and there is a big crowd of hopefuls, though the pack appears to be led by Adam Schiff(currently representing CA30) and Katie Porter(CA47, from the West Wing). Barbara Lee(CA12) is also running, and is predicted to carry much of the black vote. But the problem there is that California is not actually a very black state, with only just over 5% of Californians identifying as African American.
Adam Schiff is a polished, popular, well-spoken politician who represents a district with a lot of politically active, wealthy celebrities. He made a big splash on the national stage during the impeachments of the former President, and in the House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack.
Katie Porter has gained nationwide fame as well for her plain-spoken but deeply effective floor and commitee speeches, usually with a whiteboard to illustrate her points with biting, inescapable logic. Porter is a rising star in the Democratic Party, and in American politics in general, but Adam Schiff already is a star, and he's out-raised Porter two to one.
That said, I think the Senate primary will handily advance Schiff and Porter to the General. What happens after the primary is a matter for the campaign, which I think will unfortunately get messy.
House
Because of California's nonpartisan primary structure, we're only looking for who the top two finishers will be in a given race, and honestly, because of the blue leanings of the state in general, and the sheer number of seats, I will only be mentioning a couple, that I think will be interesting to watch. There will almost certainly be some that will still be interesting, but that I simply don't have the bandwidth to analyze. In any case, I will be extremely interested in the partisan swing in the Golden State, once the results are counted.
John Duarte(CA13) is in a tight seat, and faces a tough challenge from Adam Gray, who Duarte defeated in 2022 by an extremely narrow margin. There are two other candidates registered with the FEC, but neither has raised a substantial amount. This appears to be a race with a predictable outcome, but I will be interested in whether Gray outperforms Duarte in this matchup.
David Valadao(CA22) is losing his fingernails holding onto a seat for a D+4 district as a Republican. He voted to impeach Trump after January 6th, showing his largely working-class constituency that he isn't afraid to take principled stands on their behalf, even when it puts him in hot water with his party. Valadao is basically guaranteed to advance to the general. He isn't the question. The other position is the subject of a bitter fight between Democrats Rudy Salas and Melissa Hurtado, and Republican Chris Mathys, all of whom ran in 2022 as well, except Hurtado. Salas came out far in the lead in the '22 primary, but was ultimately defeated by the incumbent in the general, so it will be difficult to predict the outcome. I will watch this race closely.
Michael Garcia(CA27) is a Republican former naval aviator who represents a D+4 district in LA's north suburbs. Former NASA Chief of Staff George Whitesides is running as a Democrat, and has a war-chest almost twice as deep as the incumbent, though it won't go far as the LA media market is an exceptionally expensive place to buy commercial time. Garcia is running for a third term in the seat, and will almost certainly use his veteran credibility to set himself apart from Whitesides, who I predict Garcia will try to frame as an elite bureaucrat. These two will almost certainly advance to the general, but as with CA13, I am interested in what kind of margin there is between them, if any.
Republican Ken Calvert(CA41) faces a bankrolled challenge from Democrat Will Rollins in another suburban LA district, currently sporting a PVI of R+3. Again, I don't see any reason that these two won't advance to the general, but I will be watching the margin.