The primary results from this Tuesday indicate that the Democrats remain in a good position to take back the House this November. They avoided the dreaded top two "lockout" in key California House races and now are positioned to compete in all the races where they have a chance to win. Primaries in other states like New Jersey produced strong candidates for the fall.
Ron Brownstein notes:
"Democratic candidates on Tuesday tallied significantly more votes in each of the crucial LA-area seats than their counterparts did in 2014, the last midterm primary.
For instance: Democrats on Tuesday amassed nearly 37,000 votes in the congressional district north of Los Angeles held by Republican Steve Knight. That compares to only about 20,000 votes in 2014. The overall increase was similar in Democrat Gil Cisneros’s win in the Orange County seat that Republican Representative Ed Royce is vacating. Democrats tallied nearly 56,000 votes in the seat straddling Orange County and San Diego that Republican Darrell Issa is giving up; in 2014, they polled just below 35,000. In Mimi Walters’s Irvine-centered seat, Democrats increased their vote from about 24,000 in 2014 to nearly 44,000 last night. And in Dana Rohrabacher’s OC seat, Democrats expanded from about 30,000 votes in 2014 to nearly 49,000 Tuesday. All of these numbers will grow as the final tallies drift in.
Though Republican candidates, at this counting, still polled more primary votes than Democrats in most of these seats, their numbers generally remained static or slightly declined from 2014. None of these LA-area districts are sure things for Democrats in November, and the primary results underscored the party’s continuing challenge of mobilizing young and minority voters in midterm elections. But the big Democratic-turnout gains around Los Angeles underscore how far the party can progress toward retaking the House just by channeling the resistance to Trump in the places that have been most dubious of him from the start."
Just how good are the Democrats' chances of taking back the House at this point? The Economist model is now at 68 percent. Another model (linked to below) from G. Elliott Morris' Crosstab site has Democrats' chances at 63 percent. The recently-rolled out CBS Battleground Tracker model has it close to even with a slight Democratic advantage. Ditto Nate Cohn at the NYT. Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball has it pretty much even-steven.
Hold on to your popcorn! But this Tuesday definitely keeps the Democrats on track.
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