Freshman Dems who did better than 2018?

[vileplume]

It might get closer, but it looks like Andy Kim is running ahead of his 2018 margin by a good amount in NJ-3.

#candidatequality, another win for the CPC

(I recognize that this is probably mostly trendz but I still really like Andy Kim)

It's not trends^TM as NJ-3 is a much more Trump friendly district than NJ-5, NJ-7 and NJ-11 and it isn't trending Dem at the presidential level in the same way those appear to be. In it's current form NJ-3 is the type of seat the GOP *should* on paper win back relatively easily in a Biden midterm, so it's a good sign for Kim that he's winning by as much as he is. Alternatively if you're a pessimist you could interpret the New Jersey results as a bad omen for the midterms due to Malinowski, Sherrill and Gottheimer not winning by more despite the strong pro-Biden trend in their districts...

Honestly it may have been better long-term for the Democrats for Malinowski to have lost as then the it's likely the commission (who love incumbent protection maps) would have made NJ-7 into a Republican vote sink and given Sherrill and Gottheimer safe seats. You can't give all three safe seats without gerrymandering Maryland/Illinois-style and a commission is never going to draw a map like those especially as they'll definitely keep NJ-8 majority Hispanic and NJ-10 majority black.

Dems likely agree to make NJ-07 safe Republican in exchange for shoeing up Sherrill and Gottheimer.  Malinowski’s best bet would be to run against Sherrill in the primary.

That would be the smart thing to do. You can easily give Kim a much safer seat too. The current map is at least somewhat likely to snap back to 6-6 in a bad Biden midterm. With egregious gerrymanders off the table if I was the New Jersey Dems I would push the commission to go for 9-3 with GOP held NJ-2 (in South Jersey) still being potentially competitive in a good Democratic year.

[Gracile]

Harder's margin was quite something, especially since it doesn't seem to have changed much in terms of the presidential margin from 2016. Did Trump actually improve there?

https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/05/21/california-republican-party-pulls-howze-endorsement-due-to-disgraceful-social-media-posts-1285447

That doesn't fully explain it. His challenger was pretty bad, but there were tons of unserious GOP candidates who did well this year. On paper, this district was probably the GOP's most favorable CA seat based on its demographics/its Republican swing in 2016/the closeness of the 2018 race relative to the 2016 House race (And the GOP probably made further inroads here this year? Would love to know how much Biden won CA-10 by.). Given what is happening to other California Democratic candidates, I'm surprised he wasn't at least kept to single digits.

[VAR]

Harder's margin was quite something, especially since it doesn't seem to have changed much in terms of the presidential margin from 2016. Did Trump actually improve there?

https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/05/21/california-republican-party-pulls-howze-endorsement-due-to-disgraceful-social-media-posts-1285447

That doesn't fully explain it. His challenger was pretty bad, but there were tons of unserious GOP candidates who did well this year. On paper, this district was probably the GOP's most favorable CA seat based on its demographics/its Republican swing in 2016/the closeness of the 2018 race relative to the 2016 House race (And the GOP probably made further inroads here this year? Would love to know how much Biden won CA-10 by.). Given what is happening to other California Democratic candidates, I'm surprised he wasn't at least kept to single digits.

Could you elaborate on this?

[Gracile]

Harder's margin was quite something, especially since it doesn't seem to have changed much in terms of the presidential margin from 2016. Did Trump actually improve there?

https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/05/21/california-republican-party-pulls-howze-endorsement-due-to-disgraceful-social-media-posts-1285447

That doesn't fully explain it. His challenger was pretty bad, but there were tons of unserious GOP candidates who did well this year. On paper, this district was probably the GOP's most favorable CA seat based on its demographics/its Republican swing in 2016/the closeness of the 2018 race relative to the 2016 House race (And the GOP probably made further inroads here this year? Would love to know how much Biden won CA-10 by.). Given what is happening to other California Democratic candidates, I'm surprised he wasn't at least kept to single digits.

Could you elaborate on this?

It has a significantly higher share of non-college-educated whites relative to California's other competitive seats (aside from CA-21 though this seat is more white on the whole) as well as a fairly large Hispanic population which one would expect to be a bit more Republican-leaning than 2016 if it aligns with national trends among rural/smaller metro Hispanics.