California House Races Megathread

[IceSpear]

I highly doubt Dems win any, but I've found it odd that CA-04 and CA-22 have been hyped up as potential long shots while CA-01 has been completely ignored. The combined Republican vote share in the jungle primary was pretty similar for all three. I guess just because Dems hate McClintock and Nunes more than LaMalfa?

[IceSpear]

Forget losing re-election, Rohrabacher should be arrested and tried for treason.

[IceSpear]

Yeah, the local party is treating him like persona non grata¹ (I get emails from the OCGOP asking for volunteers for Kim, Walters, and Harkey), the oppo research against Rouda is underwhelming (he's an "anti-gun socialist", haven't heard that one before), and he does not exactly exude grace under pressure. Disregarding my cathartic desire to see the anti-Russia fanatics lose I think Rouda probably has the upper hand here.

¹Undoubtedly sitting on their hands this cycle so that Scott Baugh can have the privilege of losing in 2020.

Sounds like a pure toss up to me!

[IceSpear]

Any internal poll should be viewed with a lot of skepticism. Any internal poll showing massively different numbers than the jungle primary results should be viewed with even more skepticism. This applies to both of the junk polls posted on the previous page.

[IceSpear]

Why exactly is there some weird fantasy that Carbajal is vulnerable this year? Is he just a really bad candidate or something?

These are the same pundits that thought WA-03 was safe R. They're just very bad at their job.

[IceSpear]

So SurveyUSA has a poll of CA-50: http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=eb9595d8-c029-4d6c-946c-0ada29b42230&c=37

Hunter leads Najjar 47-39% with 42% of voters saying the charges against Hunter are politically motivated. 41% of voters say that the charges make no difference while 11% say they are more likely to vote for him because of the charges.

Jesus f***ing Christ. Republican voters really are shameless. Who would be more likely to vote for a corrupt man that lies out his ass, throws his own wife under the bus, and openly insults the American military?

But a serial sexual predator/pedophile lost by 1 point, which proves the voters are logical, reasonable, responsible, and hold their politicians accountable for wrongdoings.

- Pundits/Atlas posters

[IceSpear]

And here is the ad!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSPbbLKlQug

Great ad! Finally a Democrat with balls that doesn't run lame milquetoast ads.

[IceSpear]

Bold Guess- Only David Valadao, Paul Cook, Doug LaMalfa, Kevin McCarthy and Ken Calvert will remain in office after the election

Um, Tom McClintock is not vulnerable. He's in CA-4 which is not competitive it's 85% White.

Um, Rick Saccone is not vulnerable. He's in PA-18 which is not competitive it's 96% White.

(I agree with you that McClintock is not vulnerable, but that was a terrible argument.)

[IceSpear]

Yeah, the local party is treating him like persona non grata¹ (I get emails from the OCGOP asking for volunteers for Kim, Walters, and Harkey).

That’s because Dana Rohrabacher will cruise to victory in November. The suburban deplorables love him.

This isn't Temecula, and the suburban yuppies love Rouda. Rohrabacher is going down.

The NYT poll had them tied.

A long time incumbent with negative net favourables who is tied against a guy with 42% name recognition (and the challenger has high favourables in that 42%) when his party’s president is 14 points underwater in the district is an incumbent that’s very likely to lose in the election.

Yeah, head to head numbers do not tell the entire story. Mark Pryor was holding up relatively well in the head to head polls until late in the election, but astute observers were noting all along that he was stuck in the low 40s and almost all of the undecideds disapproved of Obama. Kind of like a certain Unbeatable Titan this year that everyone insists is in a pure toss up race.

Name recognition differences matter even more in House races though, where candidates are far lower profile and tend to be more at the mercy of the political environment. The road is littered with the corpses of Democrats in 2010 who "weren't polling that bad" then got BTFO by double digits because they were only polling in the high 30s/low 40s against an opponent with low name recognition.

[IceSpear]

Yeah, the local party is treating him like persona non grata¹ (I get emails from the OCGOP asking for volunteers for Kim, Walters, and Harkey).

That’s because Dana Rohrabacher will cruise to victory in November. The suburban deplorables love him.

This isn't Temecula, and the suburban yuppies love Rouda. Rohrabacher is going down.

The NYT poll had them tied.

A long time incumbent with negative net favourables who is tied against a guy with 42% name recognition (and the challenger has high favourables in that 42%) when his party’s president is 14 points underwater in the district is an incumbent that’s very likely to lose in the election.

Yeah, head to head numbers do not tell the entire story. Mark Pryor was holding up relatively well in the head to head polls until late in the election, but astute observers were noting all along that he was stuck in the low 40s and almost all of the undecideds disapproved of Obama. Kind of like a certain Unbeatable Titan this year that everyone insists is in a pure toss up race.

Name recognition differences matter even more in House races though, where candidates are far lower profile and tend to be more at the mercy of the political environment. The road is littered with the corpses of Democrats in 2010 who "weren't polling that bad" then got BTFO by double digits because they were only polling in the high 30s/low 40s against an opponent with low name recognition.

Ah, so we are resorting to Dick Morris logic now. Gotcha.

Okay, I'll put some effort into this one...

First of all, there's a difference between saying "undecideds will likely break in a certain direction" vs. "undecideds will go 100% for the challenger no matter what." Plus, Obama's approval actually was at 50% on election day anyway.

Secondly, like I said, in general it's going to matter far more in lower profile House races than for higher profile races due to differences in name recognition and the fact that lower profile races are going to be more likely to be swept up in the political tide. In fact, that very article you linked says:

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Low name recognition plagues low profile House challengers far more and for far longer than it is going to plague a presidential nominee, for obvious reasons.

If you transported back in time to 2010 (especially pre-October 2010) and you went solely by head to head margins and nothing else, there would've been zero reason to expect these races to have the results they did:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/la/louisiana_2nd_district_cao_vs_richmond-1301.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/fl/florida_25th_district_rivera_vs_garcia-1366.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_17th_district_argall_vs_holden-1308.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/mo/missouri_3rd_district_martin_vs_carnahan-1377.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ut/utah_2nd_district_philpot_vs_matheson-1465.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_4th_district_rothfus_vs_altmire-1298.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_25th_district_buerkle_vs_maffei-1378.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ia/iowa_1st_district_lange_vs_braley-1373.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ia/iowa_3rd_district_zaun_vs_boswell-1306.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/id/idaho_1st_district_labrador_vs_minnick-1266.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/mo/missouri_4th_district_hartzler_vs_skelton-1292.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_1st_district_altschuler_vs_bishop-1167.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_19th_district_hayworth_vs_hall-1275.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_24th_district_hanna_vs_arcuri-1280.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_7th_district_meehan_vs_lentz-1268.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/va/virginia_9th_district_griffith_vs_boucher-1390.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/fl/florida_22nd_district_west_vs_klein-1342.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ms/mississippi_1st_district_nunnelee_vs_childers-1270.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/nm/new_mexico_2nd_district_pearce_vs_teague-1257.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_20th_district_gibson_vs_murphy-1297.html

Granted, there were some misses in the other direction as well, mostly in heavily Democratic districts that the polls had as closer than they ended up being. So another lesson is that House polls as a whole should be taken with a pillar of salt, and that fundamentals are very important to consider as well.

Side note, it's definitely noticable how stark Siena's pro-incumbent bias is in those New York polls.

[IceSpear]

Very well, you have provided evidence, that, in the year 2010, Republicans gained a disproportionate share of the undecided vote in districts with Democratic incumbents. The examples are a bit sparse that you provided (just FL-25 and PA-7) but it seems that Republicans had a similar phenomenon occur in open districts, so I'm not sure where the idea that this has to do with incumbent-versus-challenger came from. If you performed the same phenomenon in 2012, 2014, or 2016, I doubt the evidence would suggest Democratic challengers gained a disproportionate share of undecideds in districts with Republican incumbents.

Well, my initial point didn't have as much to do with incumbency, but moreso the orientation of the undecided vote as a whole and the importance of other factors aside from head to head matchup numbers. Does one candidate have higher name recognition than the other? Is there still a primary yet to be decided on one or both sides? What is the partisan orientation of the district/state? How many undecideds are there? What is the partisan orientation of the undecided vote? To what degree will the undecided vote be impacted by the political environment? How do the undecided voters view the incumbent politician, even one that may not be on the ballot like the incumbent president? These are all things that can/should be taken into account besides just the head to head matchup numbers. Incumbency was somewhat relevant due to the fact that incumbents almost always have higher name recognition than challengers, especially on the House level, not because some magic formula means you're guaranteed to lose if a poll shows you #under50.

And then of course there's the fact that a lot of this is just a crapshoot since many of these polls are just straight junk anyway. But hey, what fun is that?

[IceSpear]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

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I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

[IceSpear]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

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I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

Odd how your apparently so concerned about these issues when you choose #Hillary over a candidate who backed these measures in the 2016 primaries.

It's not like I ever claimed to support Hillary solely for policy reasons. And besides, there was a very good argument to be made that she'd be much better at actually getting progressive goals accomplished due to knowing how the sausage gets made, as opposed to Bernie who apparently thought a bunch of college kids calling Mitch McConnell would get him to stop obstructing. Kind of like how Obama thought being "inspirational" and liking "hope and change" would get Mitch McConnell to stop obstructing.

[IceSpear]

If you have an issue with her post instead of random MUH COMRADE BERNIE MUH SCARY REDS nonsense, by all mean tell us.

I don't like his prosecutorial style against anyone who has the gall to disagree with him.
Satisfied?

All he said was pointing out that IceSpear's apparent support for solidly left-wing policies was surprising given his past (and very vocal) endorsement of a candidate who opposed or only begrudgingly coopted these policies. There's nothing "prosecutorial" (lol) about that - it's a perfectly fair question to ask someone on a political forum. And IceSpear gave a fair answer to it (albeit one I personally find misguided). You, on the other hand, are just being a smarmy dick for no reason.

I should also note here that while I support Medicare for all, $15 minimum wage, free college, etc. on an aspirational basis, I'd be potentially more supportive of alternative approaches. Like a German-style universal multipayer system, a minimum wage based off the cost of living in a particular area and indexed to inflation, free or low cost college geared more toward those that actually need it rather than a blanket program, etc.

As I said above, I trusted her with navigating the inner workings of the government more than Bernie. I also trusted her more as commander in chief. And there was also a personal/nostalgic element to it, since she was the first candidate I ever supported back when I first started following politics in 2007, and I've always admired her as a person. Also electability was a factor as well (maybe ironic in retrospect, but it's not like we'll ever know for sure what would've happened with somebody else, and nobody could've predicted Comey's last minute interference.)

And I guess I've also moved left somewhat since Trump took office. Mostly because I'm tired of catering to obnoxious moderate heroes that let Republicans get away with murder (almost literally at this point) and lamely justify it with false equivalencies about Democrats being "just as bad" because some Democrat somewhere farted in an elevator or something. Being the "Centrist Reasonable Adult In The Room Party" and the "When They Go Low We Go High Party" has gotten Democrats nothing besides Trump as president and massive wipeouts at nearly every level of government. Any "centrist" who didn't vote for Hillary has no right to bitch and complain about "muh Trump destroying institutions" or "muh Dems moving so far lefttttt." If you cared that much about having a stable centrist to center-left government you should've gotten off your lazy ass and voted for her, not stayed home or threw a tantrum by voting third party (or even worse, for Trump) because of MUH BUTTERY MALES.

[IceSpear]

On another note, I still find your disparaging of T***p voter despicable and I hope you'll evolve on that too. It's just not healthy to hate that many people. "Hate the sin, not the sinner" is good advice here.

I know you weren't talking to me but I just can not and will not. Trump is a vile waste of human skin. And this was known well before November 8, 2016. I truly hate the people who voted for him.

That doesn't follow. Just because T***p is awful doesn't mean all his voters were. Most of them are just as much victims of him as we are.

There’s a reason why a large segment of white working class voters went for Trump while the Asian, Hispanic, and black working classes said “F**k no” instead.

It’s about race/ethnicity, not class.