Democrat Eloise Reyes is considering joining Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar in challenging Republican congressman Gary Miller in CA-31. This has caused panic among some Democrats. This is oddly funny. Obviously, Democrats want to do anything to avoid a repeat of 2012 where Top Two produced two Republicans competing for the seat in November. So there is something there. What makes it oddly funny is that Democrats have been trumpeting their amazing triumphs in California and how they're going to eventually wipe out Republicans in the state, leaving the GOP with only a handful of districts. Usually the party talking about how they'll win everything isn't the one who is scared.
Of course, there's little reason to be scared right now. There's only one Republican in the race and that's unlikely to change. Even if another one enters the race, that candidate is unlikely to be strong enough to take 25% of the vote the way Bob Dutton was. If a second Republican enters the race, there'd be two Republicans and two Democrats. If the Democrats have reason to be scared with two Republicans, wouldn't Republicans have reason to be scared with two Democrats? No, they wouldn't, because a two on two is unlikely to produce two of the same party finishing 1-2 unless it's a fairly one-sided district. The Democrats were done in because there were four Democrats splitting votes.
What could happen is that the hand-picked Democrat could fail to make Top Two, the way Blong Xiong failed to in CA-21 last year. The primary electorate picked John Hernandez and he proved a weak candidate, falling to Republican David Valadao.
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