Gov. Gavin Newsom’s landslide triumph against the recall made Democrats giddy Wednesday about prospects for winning back Republican House seats as they celebrated the victory as affirmation of their efforts to combat COVID-19.
But whether the Democratic glow will linger and help the party in next year’s pivotal congressional elections is questionable.
Republicans, as well as some analysts, noted that Tuesday’s result guarantees nothing, since a lot can change between now and the November 2022 midterm vote.
“The recall election won’t have any impact on the midterms and anyone who claims otherwise doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about,” said Torunn Sinclair, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
California is going to be a major battleground as the GOP tries to regain control of the House next year. Republicans need a net gain of five House seats to win control of the chamber, and seven California seats are expected to be in play.
The GOP has to hold on to four Republican-held seats in districts where California voters preferred Biden last year over President Donald Trump.
Biden won by more than 10 points in districts represented by Republican Reps. David Valadao, Mike Garcia and Young Kim, and was a narrow winner in Rep. Michele Steel’s district.
Also closely watched are Democratic Reps. Josh Harder, Katie Porter and Mike Levin, who represent districts that have been held by Republicans in recent years.
Democrats Wednesday said the Newsom outcome showed they have not only a winning formula, but momentum.
They saw harbingers of what may be ahead for California and perhaps the nation next year: An electorate citing COVID-19 as its top concern and supporting a Democratic administration’s public health policies.
Democrats saw a surprisingly big turnout for a special election, learned the value of running against a candidate who could be painted as an inexperienced extremist aligned with former President Donald Trump and found fears of new abortion restrictions play well among women, particularly in swing suburbs.
“We’re pretty excited about California,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
COVID-19 strategy a boost
One key for Newsom was that a solid majority agreed with his handling of COVID-19 even as Republicans painted him as overreaching.
“COVID politics backfired against the Republicans. Republicans ran against COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates, and they lost,” said Katie Merrill, a San Francisco-based Democratic strategist. The vote, she said, vindicated his public health policies.
Exit polls illustrated the strength of Newsom’s message: Nearly 3 out of 4 voters supported a school mask requirement, and of those, 4 out of 5 rejected the recall.
Newsom’s Republican adversaries for the most part campaigned by criticizing the governor’s COVID-19 emergency measures, such as requiring people to wear masks in public settings, ordering health care workers to get vaccinated and restricting business activity for a time.
It didn’t work.
Biden called Newsom’s win proof that voters approve of his COVID-19 policies. “This vote is a resounding win for the approach that he and I share to beating the pandemic: strong vaccine requirements, strong steps to reopen schools safely, and strong plans to distribute real medicines — not fake treatments — to help those who get sick,” the president said.
Another lesson, said Merrill: “Extreme right-wing candidates help Democrats win.”
She pointed to Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host who picked up the most votes among candidates seeking to replace Newsom. Elder staked out far-right positions, such as stating his opposition to any minimum wage.
He opposes abortion, told a Sacramento-area church that he thinks sex education has no role in schools and argued that rising crime is the result of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Newsom at campaign stops focused on Elder and suggested Elder would undo Democratic policies with potential judicial and government appointments. Biden during a California visit this week called Elder a “Trump clone.”
“Larry Elder was the gift that kept on giving from the moment he announced,” Merrill said.
What about 2022?
Analysts pointed out that the electorate remains polarized and largely unwilling to move away from the political party of their choice.
If anything, Democrats should be relieved by the outcome, some said, not encouraged. After all, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in California.
“The Democrats held serve here. California is a blue state and Newsom benefited from a very conservative leading opponent. I think Democrats can be heartened that this didn’t end up very close — that would have been a real sign of trouble,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan firm that analyzes House races.
Among the races Kondik is watching closely involves Valadao. His district stretches across the San Joaquin Valley. He had represented it since 2013 but lost to Democrat TJ Cox in the 2018 election. Cox won 50.4% of the vote.
Valadao reclaimed the seat in 2020, also winning with 50.4% of the vote.
Can GOP rebound?
To do well, GOP candidates are going to have to change the party’s message, said John Pitney, professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College and former Republican Party staffer.
“In the short run anyway, the pandemic issue favors the Democrats,” he said, citing exit polls.“The anti-recall ads cast the Republicans as antivaxxers, which strongly suggests that internal polling identified vaccination as a winning issue for Democrats.
The recall election may have also exposed another problem for the Republicans: abortion policy.
“Protecting a woman’s right to choose will drive suburban women to Democrats. Finally, we just saw a kernel of how important choice will be in the midterm elections,” said Merrill.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide a major abortion case next year, and there’s already concern about the recent Texas abortion law, which essentially bars almost all abortions.
Newsom cited the Texas law at several rallies and noted that had he been recalled, an anti-abortion candidate like Elder could have replaced him.
“This was the first election since the Texas bill passed and women overwhelmingly voted for Newsom. He even won Orange County, the home of three swing districts and those districts are dominated by suburban women,” Merrill said.
Next year, Democrats can use abortion to “go capture support from those conservative leaning, maybe white independent women in Orange County who maybe never thought they’d see the end of Roe v. Wade in their lifetime,” voter data expert Paul Mitchell told a Sacramento Press Club forum Wednesday.
Kondik noted that it’s hard to predict House races because many states, including California, will be redrawing district lines based on 2020 census data. California will be losing a seat, probably in the Los Angeles area, but the new lines could have an impact on those swing districts.
An independent commission is now weighing the options, and the outcome “is unanswerable at this point,” the Crystal Ball analysis said.
Today, though, California looks like a big Democratic opportunity.
The results, said Democratic Rep. Maloney, “ought to send a chill down the sound of (House Republican Leader) Kevin McCarthy who thinks he can do this toxic Trump stuff without the Trump turnout.”
McClatchyDC’s Bryan Lowry contributed reporting.
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