A District to Watch

Most counties didn’t report VBMs, but Orange County does so every day. And the Orange County numbers have been consistently good for the GOP.

CA-24: One non-Orange County district that showed new VBM returns was CA-24. And there was a massive surge in Republican ballots. The day was 35%D/43%R and there are now 8 more Republican ballots in than Democratic ballots. In the past Democrats have beaten VBMs by 1-5 points, so this still looks like a narrow Democratic victory.

This is the highest return district of all the ones I’m monitoring and it’s at 21%. Anyone who thinks CA-24 isn’t worth watching is going to be in for a surprise on election night.

CA-25: Good news here for Democrats. It was an R+1 day, reducing VBMs from R+8 to R+7. I don’t know what the electorate has to be for Katie Hill to win but she’ll get into that range with more days like this.

CA-39: A 33%D/44%R day reduced the Republican advantage from R+18 to R+17. While an R+1 day is very helpful to Katie Hill, an R+11 day is probably a day Gil Cisneros loses more ground.

CA-45: A 30%D/47%R day keeps the district at R+17%

CA-48: This district is still R+16%

CA-49: Any day with only Orange County ballots is good for Diane Harkey. A whopping 52% of the ballots were Republican. The district is R+24 in Orange County but only R+4 in San Diego County. Overall, it’s R+10 right now and that should be Republican enough for Harkey to win. But if the GOP advantage shrinks quite a bit with the next San Diego addition the district goes to Levin.

I’ve written this earlier and I’ll write it again. You can make one of two assumptions. The first is Republicans, Democrats, and NPP voters will for each party similar to the way they have in the last four elections. There’s some variance here. In some elections Republicans beat the VBM return margin and in others the Democrats beat it.

The second assumption is that enough Republican and NPP voters vote Democratic that these there’s no ballot return advantage that means Republicans win. This is possible, although I think less likely. Historical voting patterns tell how people vote. But if this is true, there’s no point in even looking at these numbers. Democrats win everywhere! If you were 100% sold on this assumption you wouldn’t be reading this.