This week’s primary elections in California represent an important moment for the Democratic Party. The state will be central in the Democrats’ effort to take back the House in 2018, as seven Republican incumbents hold districts which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
However, Democrats’ chances may be imperiled by a lack of unity, a shift in national sentiment, and the structure of California’s “jungle primary.”
For the Democrats, the surge of progressive activism and increasingly left-leaning agenda has led to crowded fields of Democratic candidates across California districts.
Because of the state’s jungle primary system, where the two candidates who receive the highest number of votes, regardless of party, face off in the November ballot, Democrats risk being drowned out by a few Republican candidates who have proven to appeal to more cohesive and organized bases.
The nonpartisan California Target Book has counted 60 Democrats running in the 14 districts that are currently represented by Republicans. If Democratic votes are spread too thin, they run the risk of getting locked out of the November general election and allowing Republicans to retain the seats.
Noticing the seriousness of this issue, Jay Chen, a Democratic candidate for California’s 39th district was polling side by side other leading Democratic candidates when he decided to drop out.
The polling indicated that Democratic voters might be divided enough to create an all-Republican general election. Chen still thinks the Democratic party faces a “precarious situation” and predicts that few will join his lead in putting the Party’s success over personal ambitions or discrete progressive policy goals.
Chen told the New York Times that “If you’ve never been involved in the party before and you just ran because you want to run, then you don’t really have those considerations.”
This is the inherent problem with the Democrats in California. With so many new candidates entering the field, the party lacks a real uniting message and it will likely lead to unpredictable outcomes.
In sum, Democrats are struggling to set themselves apart. Fran Sdao, chair of the Orange County Democratic Party, said “there’s a lot of frustration” within the party, with voters continually questioning who they should support in the upcoming primaries.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is struggling to shape the field, due to many wealthy candidates self-funding their campaigns, giving the DCCC no leverage.
In some instances, such as the race for California’s 48th, Democratic organizations and campaigns are getting ugly against each other. The district, a longtime Republican stronghold, was won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is now seeing a divisive Democratic primary.
The two Democratic frontrunners, Hans Keirstead and Harley Rouda, are locked in an extraordinarily divisive campaign against one another. Keirstead blamed Rouda’s campaign for releasing salacious and unfounded accusations of misconduct during his time as a professor at the University of California, Irvine.
While Michael McLaughlin, Rouda’s campaign manager, recently said of the Keirstead campaign that “Even on their best days they can’t help but join Donald Trump and mislead Orange County voters.”
Rouda has the endorsement of the DCCC, while Keirstead is backed by the California state Democratic Party. This level of vitriol and contention among Democrats is seriously hurting their chances at flipping seats and ultimately retaking the House in November.
Additionally, in the period of just the past few months, the Democrats’ advantage nationally has slipped as well. According to the Real Clear Politics average, voters favor Democrats over Republicans nationally by just 4 points. Six months ago, the Democrats led by a full 13 points in the general congressional vote.
In many ways, this narrowing of the generic ballot by Republicans can be credited to low unemployment, a growing economy, a strong stock market, and a potentially groundbreaking denuclearization agreement with North Korea, giving Republican leaders a lot to campaign on.
To be sure, California is a predominately Blue state. But with the June 5 primary around the corner, Democrats are still scrambling to unify. To capitalize on the upcoming 2018 midterms, Democrats in California must move forward with a moderate and inclusive platform that will bring voters of all backgrounds to unify rather than divide the party.
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