The Senate primary resulted in two Democrats advancing just as it did in 2016. That year Democrats got 63.9% of the vote to 28.6% for Republicans. This year, as of 6/14, it’s Democrats 62.5%-34.2%. In two party percentages the Democratic share dropped from 69.1% to 64.6%. In 2016, Kamala Harris got 40% of the vote, Loretta Sanchez got 19%, and other Democrats got 5%. This year Dianne Feinstein got 44% of the vote, Kevin De Leon got 12%, and other Democrats got 6%.Even though De Leon got 7% less than Loretta Sanchez, and Republicans got nearly 6% more votes the GOP vote was once again spread thin and no one topped De Leon.
Kamala Harris is seen as more progressive than Loretta Sanchez and won in a landslide 62%-38% in November. Some people could look at that and assume De Leon has a chance.
They’d be wrong.
Harris didn’t run as the more progressive choice. She ran as the attorney general who fought for Californians and won in battles against Wells Fargo, among others. Sanchez didn’t really run to Harris’ right. Harris ran as the establishment pick and Sanchez as the insurgent. Granted, it wasn’t exactly an insurgency that caught fire.
Dianne Feinstein is even of an establishment pick than Harris was. She has a long history with the Democratic party and with the California voters. Hence, why she did a few pointes better than Harris did even though Democrats got a lower percentage of the votes.
De Leon, on the other hand, did much worse than Sanchez. His 12% was less than 2/3 of her 19%.
How will De Leon do in November? It’s possible that De Leon could pick up the lion’s share of the 6% of voters who voted for other Democrats. They may be protest voters who don’t like Dianne Feinstein. Unfortunately for him, that’d put Feinstein up by around 45%-17% or 72%-28% when translated as the full electorate.
What about the voters who didn’t vote for a Democrat?
Loretta Sanchez lost in June by 21 points and in November by 24 points. She sort of split the voters who didn’t vote for her or Harris. I say sort of because there were a lot more general election voters than primary voters. Each of them picked up a lot of new voters.
The exit poll tells us that while Harris won Democrats 68%-32% and independents 62%-38%, Sanchez actually won Republicans 56%-44%. That doesn’t surprise me. Sanchez was seen as the more centrist choice, although Harris running a rather non-ideological campaign probably helped her a bit with Republicans.
The exit poll says that the Presidential race consisted of 47% Democrats/23% Republicans/30% independents, but the Senate race was 50% Democrats/19% Republicans/31% independents.
Most of the other Senate races had vote drop-offs of 0-2% from the Presidential to Senate races. California had 14% less votes. So a lot of Trump voters probably passed on the race.
In top two candidates will usually go after voters who voted for someone other than themselves in the primary. In a crowded field like this one, 56% of the voters voted for someone other than Dianne Feinstein. Unfortunately for Kevin De Leon most of those voters voted Republican. One of the central themes of De Leon’s campaign is that Dianne Feinstein isn’t fighting Donald Trump and the Republicans hard enough. So it’s hard to see what De Leon’s appeal to the Trump voter will be.
“You’re a sexist, racist, homophobe. Vote for me.”
I don’t see that going over. In fact, any appeal to voters who voted Republican in the primary would be contrary to De Leon’s brand. He’s ceding those voters to Dianne Feinstein.
Not only is it difficult to see De Leon winning but I have a hard time seeing how he even gets 25% of the vote.
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