California Sees High Turnout, Mixed Signals As Election Day Nears

LOS ANGELES, CA — The ballots are already rolling in, and one thing is certain: voters in California are fired up.

More than three million voters had already cast their ballots in California as of Friday, and the state is poised to play an outsized role in national politics with more competitive Congressional districts than any other state. Whether California will send a blue wave to wash over Washington, or whether the president’s base will come out to protect him from the flood of investigations that likely to be launched by a Democrat-led House of Representatives remains to be seen. For both parties, there are signs of hope and peril in the early voting patterns across the state.

Hope On The Right

Propelled as much by antipathy for President Donald Trump as by changing demographics, California is marching ever leftward. Both candidates for senate are Democrats, and at the top of the ticket, polls don’t hold much promise for Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox, who is trailing Gov. Gavin Newsom by double digits in every poll.

But there are signs of hope for Republican Congressional incumbents and candidates facing serious Democratic challenges this year. While no one knows how people voted in the mail-in ballots, more Republicans than Democrats have voted thus far in the most competitive Congressional districts.

That Republican advantage is not entirely surprising because Republicans tend to vote by mail at higher rates.

“Early voting is a pretty bad predictor of what is actually going to happen,” said UC Berkeley Professor of Political Science Laura Stoker.

“However, the turnout is up,” Stoker said. “What matters is which base is turning out at higher rates.”

In the seven most competitive districts, about 193,000 registered Republicans voted by mail compared with 177,000 from registered Democrats as of Friday, the firm Political Data told the Los Angeles Times.

RELATED: California Voter Guide: Complete Candidate Resumes

Six of the most competitive Congressional races are in Southern California with four of them in Orange County where Democrats are threatening to take seats that either have never gone blue or have been held by Republicans for decades. In the final days of the race, some of those SoCal Republicans have seen polls giving them an edge.

Republican Rep. Steve Knight, fighting to remain the last Republican Congressman in Los Angeles, has maintained a slight four-point lead over Democratic challenger Katie Hill, according to a Siena College/New York Times poll.

And In San Diego County, Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter appears to be fending off a challenge from Ammar Campa-Najjar despite a criminal indictment for allegedly misusing campaign funds hanging over his head. A survey USA Poll released Tuesday gives Hunter a 3 percent lead.

Other endangered Republicans can cling to hope that though they are behind in the polls, they are close enough that they could still squeak out a win. Orange County’s Republican Rep. Mimi Walters is a mere two points behind her challenger Katie Porter, a UCI law professor running a progressive campaign. According to the Siena College/New York Times poll, six percent of voters remain undecided in the race.

Dana Rohrabacher has been jockeying for the lead against democratic challenger Harley Rouda. While the Siena College/New York Times poll gives Rouda a three percent lead, that lead is within the poll’s margin of error, and most experts call the race a toss-up.

Confidence On The Left

With a week left in the race, former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on late night TV last week, to declare victory.

“Let me say this: Up until today, I would have said if the election were held today, we will win,” Pelosi told Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show.”

“Now what I’m saying is, we will win, we will win, we will win,” she added.

Democrats should be feeling confident said Berkeley’s Stoker.

“The generic ballot is a harbinger of things to come,” she said. “The Democratic lead in the generic ballot is hovering between 8 and 9, and it’s getting higher and higher.”

According to Stoker, a generic lead of 6 percent or higher likely translates into control of the House of Representatives.

Fred Smoller, a political science professor at Chapman University in Orange County also sees reason for Democrats to celebrate.

Orange County’s competitive races are seeing younger voters and Independants turn out at higher rates than in past elections, which would likely favor Democrats, whose voters usually turn out at lower rates than Republican voters.

“We are seeing a lot of energy in one party: the Democrats. Polling shows the Independants favoring Democrats in Orange County. You are going to see at least two of those competitive seats, possibly all four, can go blue,” Smoller said. “The president is exciting his base, but it’s a smaller base....I think the Democrats will win the House and will do very well in Orange County.”

The polls seem to favor Democrats in Orange County for the first time ever.

Rohrabacher has held his seat for decades without facing serious challenge. That he would be trailing in any polls would be unthinkable in the birthplace of California conservatism. Similarly, it would have seemed far fetched just four years ago that Walters could be unseated by an openly progressive newcomer.

And two Republican seats vacated by retiring Reps. Ed Royce and Darrell Issa could be headed to the Democratic column. In the 49th District held by Issa for several terms, Democratic Mike Levin holds a double digit lead over Republican Diane L. Harkey.

In Royce’s 38th District, the race is, by all polls, really too close to call. But Navy veteran and lottery jackpot winner Gil Cisneros, a Democrat, holds a slight lead in the polls over Royce protégé Young Kim. A Siena College/New York Times poll gives Cisneros a one point lead over Kim.

To the North, the most imperiled incumbent is the Modesto area’s 10th District Republican Congressman Jeff Denham, who is trailing Democratic challenger Josh Harder in the polls by two points. The district is a cluster of cities and farming communities with a large Latino population, and Harder's success depends on his ability to get Latinos to head to the polls and vote for him.

Beyond The Polls, Beyond The Parties

The polls need to be taken with a grain of salt, said Rachel Michelin, Executive Director of California Women Lead, a nonpartisan group committed to training and supporting women in the political arena.

“If there is anything we learned from the 2016 election, it was that the pollsters and pundits all got it wrong,” said Michelin.

Michelin said she believes that’s because in today’s hyper-partisan climate, people are reluctant to tell the truth about how they’ll vote.

Regardless of which party declares victory Tuesday night, Michelin predicts a measure of success for women entering the political fray in California. Currently there are 17 female delegates among California’s 53, said Michelin. After Tuesday’s election, Michelin predicts there could be 18 to 19 women elected to represent California in the House of Representatives. Though men still outnumbered female candidates roughly two-to-one while maintaining fundraising advantages, this year’s crop of female candidates are stronger than in past years, said Michelin. They’ve mounted strong campaigns while building the kind of networks that could carry them to victory in 2020 and beyond even if they lose on Tuesday.

In a way, Trump gets some of the credit for the success challengers are having in California.

“If there is one thing that he hammered when running for president, it is this anti-establishment mentality, and I think that is trickling down,” said Michelin.

Women aren’t the only group that seems to be participating in the political process in unusual numbers. Daniel Zingale, Senior Vice President of the nonpartisan, nonprofit California Endowment, said his group is seeing signs of increased enthusiasm among youth voters.

“We won’t know until after the dust settles, but there are some indicators that enthusiasm is up among younger voters,” Zingale said. “We are definitely hearing from younger voters that they are motivated by a deep concern about the direction of the country…. I believe that history demonstrates that something good always comes from the darkest of situations. It’s clear that our country is deeply divided.”

The attack that took the lives of 11 people at a Synagogue in Pennsylvania and the Trump supporter who sent pipe bombs to the president's most prominent critics reflect a nation on edge. The endowment further works in communities where people feel under siege from politicians, Zingale added.

“I think the troubling atmosphere is apparent to everyone regardless of your political point of view," he said. "If that isn’t enough to inspire higher levels of participation in voting, it’s worrying.”

Photo by Paige Austin