CA-25: Republicans Triumph, Garcia Starts Out in Toss Up for November

[RandySF]

Late Wednesday, Democrat Christy Smith conceded defeat to Republican Mike Garcia in the special election in California's 25th District, handing Republicans their first pickup in the state since 1998. Although tens of thousands of votes are still untallied and Garcia's margin is likely to shrink, both parties are confident Garcia's current 56 percent to 44 percent lead is insurmountable.

Sometimes special elections blow with the national winds, and some fly in the face of them. The same night Garcia took back a district that voted for Hillary Clinton by seven points and flipped to Democrat Katie Hill by nine points in 2018, GOP state Sen. Tom Tiffany won a less competitive special election in Wisconsin's 7th CD by 14 points, down six from Trump's 20 point margin there in 2016.

But above all, special election's place more of a premium on candidate quality and local factors than regularly scheduled ones — and the stand-alone nature of the special helped Garcia localize the race and defy President Trump's unpopularity.

Some Democrats continue to blame Hill for the loss — both for creating the vacancy by resigning and for inserting herself in the special by spending $200,000 on her awkward ad imploring Democrats to vote, despite voters' hangover from the ethics investigation into her relationships with staff. But the district's reversal from 2018 likely had much more to do with three fundamentals:



https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/house/california-house/ca-25-republicans-triumph-garcia-starts-out-toss-november

[beachbumbob]

1. if democrats sit out like they did in CA-25, we will see same results everywhere on Nov 3rd and

we would deserve it

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. It's a good article, and clearly shows our weakness this time out.

It also points the way to a possible Democratic victory in November. But only if we heed the message!

[dsc]

3. I will be completely honest here

it is very hard for me not to completely lose my shit over just how lazy these voters were. They had the ballots mailed to them with a postage paid return envelope. The literally had to color in a fucking oval, put a piece of paper in an envelope (that they were provided), seal it, and put it in their god damned mail box, and that is it. We just had an election where people stood in line for fucking hours in the middle of a god damned pandemic, to vote. And these lazy mother fuckers couldn't color in an oval and put a piece of paper in a god damned envelope. And they have the nerve to wonder why politicians won't pay attention to their issues.