Democrats advanced candidates in several key congressional battlegrounds, but the results of Tuesday’s primaries may dash the party’s hopes of riding a blue wave of anti-Trump sentiment to retake the House of Representatives in midterm elections in the fall.
Candidates backed by the party establishment also won Democratic primaries in Iowa, New Mexico and New Jersey, boosting the Democrats’ hopes of flipping several districts now held by Republicans.
But in California, home to the most closely watched races on Tuesday, Republican incumbents largely came out on top in several key districts.
Early polls had also suggested voters would be choosing from two Democrats for California governor: front-runner Gavin Newsom, the state’s lieutenant-governor, and former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Republican John Cox helped propel the San Diego-area venture capitalist onto the ballot behind Mr. Newsom.
Democrats are still expected to capture both the California governor’s mansion and the majority of House races in the fall.
But the results of dozes of primaries and special elections that took place in eight different states on Tuesday − the busiest election day ahead of the midterms − portend an uphill battle for Democrats who had hoped that voter anger with Mr. Trump would help the party flip the 23 seats it needs to retake the House in November.
California is home to 14 of those Republican-held seats. The state’s unique primary system, in which the two candidates who earn the most votes advance to the ballot, regardless of party affiliation, was expected to give Democrats the advantage, potentially shutting out Republican candidates from several races in the heavily left-leaning state.
Democrats poured millions of dollars into battles in a handful of districts that voted Republicans into Congress but backed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. But the moves backfired in several cases. Anger at the Trump presidency inspired a flurry of first-time Democratic candidates to flood into the most contentious House races. Democrats began to worry that they could split the vote and allow two Republicans to come up the middle.
The drawbacks of California’s so-called “jungle primary” were most obvious in two Republican-held districts in Southern California seen to be vulnerable to a takeover by Democrats.
In the suburban Los Angeles-area 39th district, left vacant by the retirement of Republican Ed Royce, Democrats struggled to wrangle an unwieldy list of candidates. Party leaders were forced to broker a truce between candidates Gil Cisneros and Andy Thorburn to end their constant stream of attack ads on each other and focus their attention on Republican opponents. Mr. Cisneros, a multimillionaire lottery winner, will face off against Republican state assemblyman Young Kim.
Democrats are also hoping to target the Orange County 48th district, held by Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican who has come under fire for his close ties to Russia and faced a long list of opponents from both parties.
But the Democrats failed to unite behind a single candidate. The national party leadership backed Harley Rouda, a real estate executive, while California’s Democratic Party endorsed his opponent, Hans Keirstead, a former University of British Columbia medical researcher.
The two candidates, who were locked in a bitter campaign, came within less than 100 votes of each other, and the final results won’t likely be known for days. Democrats were battling each other in a similarly close race in a Southern California district left open by retiring Republican Darrell Issa.
While the results of the primary helped quell fears that Democrats would be shut out of the most competitive California races, most of those battles will still be two-party affairs, with Democrats appearing to have candidates making it onto the ballot in all 53 of California’s congressional races, while Republicans were shut out of just 10 districts.
Several Republican congressmen loyal to Mr. Trump also managed to chalk up large leads against crowded fields of Democratic challengers in suburban Southern California, including House majority leader Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes, who has been one of the Republicans’ most vocal opponents of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
A Republican also made it onto the ticket against California Attorney-General Xavier Becerra, who has led the state’s battle against the Trump administration. And an ex-Republican independent leads the race for the state’s insurance commissioner.
Despite what remains an unclear victory for Democrats in California’s primaries for the House of Representatives, Republicans were shut out of several state races. In the battle for U.S. Senate, Dianne Feinstein, one of the party’s highest-ranking senators, will face fellow Democrat Kevin de Leon, a former California state senate leader.
Female candidates were among big winners in the state on Tuesday. The Trump presidency and the #MeToo movement inspired a rush of women to jump into the race and as many as 33 women appear to have made it onto ballots across California’s congressional races.
Voters in Santa Clara County also approved a ballot measure to recall Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky over his 2016 decision to sentence Stanford University student Brock Turner to a six-month sentence for sexually assaulting a woman while she was unconscious. Mr. Turner served just three months in jail, sparking international outrage over what many felt was a sentence that was too lenient. The decision marks the first time that California voters have forced a judge from the bench in more than 80 years.
Tamsin McMahon