It’s pretty simple. Meg Whitman isn’t running against Jerry Brown for congress. In 2010, the high Democrat was Bill Lockyear, with 60.9% of the vote. The high Republican was Steve Cooley with 49.6%. These have pretty much been ceilings for both parties. Dianne Feinstein did better in 2006, with 62.9%. On the Republican side, Steve Poizner got 56.9% and Arnold Schwarzenegger got 58.9%. It’s possible the Democratic ceiling is slightly higher and the Republican ceiling is much higher, but I think these totals are safe extremes.
Cooley won 12 districts that treasurer candidate Mimi Walters also won. Lockyear won 26 districts that Kamila Harris also won. So we can pretty safely say that the Democrats will win 26 and Republicans 12 for the foreseeable future.
What about the other 15 that Cooley and Lockyear won? Those could conceivably be in play. Of course the Republicans won’t be running Steve Cooley against Kamila Harris in these 15 districts. But they might run a popular incumbent with a big war chest like Jerry Lewis in a district the Democrats appear to be favored.
Neither Meg Whitman nor Carly Fiorina won the 31st district, but Cooley got 54% of the vote. If Lewis runs here and Joe Baca doesn’t oppose him, I could easily see this district as Lean Republican.
Former Republican congressman Steve Kuykendall is running in the open 47th district, one that neither Whitman nor Fiorina did better than 46%. Cooley, however, did get 53.3%. Likely opponent, Democrat Alan Lowenthal, would be favored, but Kuykendall has a clear path to victory. This isn’t like the Massachusetts Senate race where Scott Brown had to beat the typical Republican by 7-10 points to win. Kuykendall needs to be 3% less popular than Cooley to do so.
The 33rd, which is at the bottom of the list, will be where Henry Waxman will be running. No one sees this district as a possible Republican pick-up, but it’s worth noting that a Democratic district is the only one on the list that’s perceived as fully safe.
How it’ll shake out depends on candidates and political environment, but the floor for the GOP, in the event of a Democratic landslide, is 12 seats. Meg Whitman won 15. Carly Fiorina won 21. Steve Cooley won 27.
The three districts that Whitman won that Mimi Walters didn’t will all have incumbent Republicans, Brian Bilbray, Mary Bono Mack and Jeff Denham. The environment doesn’t seem to be tilting one way or another. So the floor should be 15 seats. While many pundits are predicting a 4-5 seat Republican loss, I see a 4 seat Republican loss as the worst the GOP can do.
The districts that Fiorina won, but Whitman didn’t, are a bit trickier. We know that 3 Democratic incumbents and 1 Republican incumbent will be running in those 6 seats. Elton Gallegly may still run in one of the districts.
Without incumbents I’d put all six of these seats as toss-ups, but incumbents will push the lean. Thus, I have the 3rd,16th, and 24th as Lean Democratic and 7th as Lean Republican. I have the 21st and 26th as toss-ups, but Gallegly would push the 26th into a Lean Republican rating.
I’m standing by my prediction that Republicans will lose 1 seat, although I could see a range of Democrats +4 to Republicans +2 . The right Republican candidate in a few of the districts could push the GOP upper limit.
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