Incumbent Republican congressman Gary Miller and Democratic Redlands mayor Pete Aguilar have been regarded as the favorites since the beginning. Republican state senator Bob Dutton and Democrat Justin Kim have just had to work harder. Both attended a recent Tea Party forum. There might not be many votes for Kim at such an event, but he got kudos for going and fighting for every vote.
Part of the uphill struggle is that Aguilar is now being backed by a SuperPac and finagled an endorsement from California senator Dianne Feinstein. Today the dominant paper in the area weighed in, giving their endorsement to Dutton, certainly a boost for his insurgent campaign. Because of Top Two they took the unusual step of endorsing a second candidate and gave that to Aguilar.
Clearly, Aguilar is the establishment pick. Kim is further in the hole due to nothing he or Aguilar have done. Still, no one knows what to expect from Top Two. Two candidates are likely to get 25-30% of the votes each and that's not a huge share. So this race is far from over.
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