CA Election Results: Will A Red Wave Actually Hit California?

CALIFORNIA — Democrats could have dodged the rumored red wave in California, early returns from Tuesday's general election indicate; but potentially millions of ballots have not been counted.

It looked hopeful for Golden State Democrats on Wednesday morning, but multiple races hung in the balance. Some races were giving Democrats reason to sweat as the tide could turn if multitude of red ballots arrived.

In the House, Democrats kept seats in districts from Virginia to Kansas to Rhode Island, while many in states like New York and California had not been called as of Wednesday. But Republicans notched several important victories in their bid to get to the 218 seats needed to reclaim the House majority. In a particularly symbolic victory, the GOP toppled House Democratic campaign chief Sean Patrick Maloney of New York.

Here's a look at what the political landscape of California looked like as of Wednesday afternoon:

Incumbent House Republicans Young Kim, Michelle Steel, Mike Garcia and David Valadao held steadfast to their posts with strong leads.

Meanwhile, Democrat Representatives Katie Porter and Mike Levin showed razor-thin leads over their Republican challengers in Orange County with about half the votes counted. These races were still in a dead heat early Wednesday.

Porter had 50.28 percent of the vote compared to Republican Scott Baugh's 49.72 percent of the vote with 55 percent of votes tallied. Just 938 votes separated them Wednesday morning.

With just over half of the votes in, Levin had 51.9 percent of the vote to Republican challenger Brian Maryott's 48.1 percent of the vote.

Speaking in San Diego County at a rally in support of endangered Levin last week, President Joe Biden said the outcome of the election would “determine the direction of the country for at least a decade or more.”

“This is a choice ... between two fundamentally different versions of America,” Biden said on Thursday.

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Over in Riverside County, Democrat Will Rollins was beating incumbent Ken Calvert, with 56.2 percent of the vote.

The desert district morphed into a more competitive one after the area was redrawn to include Palm Springs, which has a dominant LGBTQ community. Still, the New York Times had put chips on Calvert's win. Rollins victory over the 30-year incumbent would be a major upset.

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It remains to be seen whether Palm Springs liberals will be able to flip the red county blue.

Over in Los Angeles County, Rep. Mike Garcia was leading Democratic challenger Christy Smith 57.6 percent to 42.4 percent with a third of the votes counted. The race resides in a northern LA district that was once a Republican stronghold. Now, the tide could swing either way. The New York Times marked the race "a tossup."

Republican Rep. David Valadao got off to an early lead against Democratic challenger Rudy Salas in the Central Valley. He had garnered 54 percent of the vote compared to Salas' 46 percent as of Wednesday afternoon. Valado, running in a Democratic stronghold, is one of 10 House Republicans to impeach President Donald Trump.

Also in the Central Valley, is District 13, the seat left open due to redistricting. As of early Wednesday morning, the race remained one of the tightest in the state. Republican John Duarte was able to inch past Democratic Assembly member Adam Gray on Wednesday. Duarte had 50.15 percent of the vote to Gray's 49.85 percent.

Even if the GOP ultimately wins the House, it won't be by a margin as large as during other midterm cycles. Democrats gained a net of 41 House seats under Trump in 2018, President Barack Obama saw the GOP gain 63 gain in 2010 and Republicans gained 54 seats in 1994, during the Bill Clinton administration.

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A small majority in the House would pose a great challenge for the GOP and especially California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to be House speaker and would have little room for error in navigating a chamber of members eager to leverage their votes to advance their own agenda.

Wednesday was a day for sorting, sifting and framing of an expensive, exhaustive and highly negative midterm election campaign.

And nothing was quite yet certain, most importantly which party would control Congress or whether majority power would be split between the House and Senate.

But some things were obvious. Republicans did not achieve the “wave” election that many had predicted. Democrats won major statewide races and flipped a Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Abortion remained an animating issue.

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Control of Congress was on a knife's edge, dependent on the outcome of three Senate races and about a dozen in the House.

Republicans hoped for a wipeout nationwide, but they didn't get it. After Democrats racked up several hard-fought wins in swing districts, like Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s Virginia seat, the sweeping wins many Republicans predicted had yet to materialize Wednesday.

Going into Election Day, the Golden State had the most competitive House races of any state. Republican party officials, anticipating a red wave, expressed confidence the party could flip as many as five districts in the state, giving the GOP control of the House. Even rising Democratic stars such as Porter faced genuine threats to their reelection, according to the polls heading into Tuesday.

Despite grim polling for the Democrats, party officials were hopeful they could actually pick up a couple of seats in the Golden State. Their eyes were set on unseating one incumbent elected to office by the thinnest margin nationwide in 2020 (333 votes) with Rep. Mike Garcia in Los Angeles County and another who drew the ire of his party in voting to impeach former President Donald Trump, also in 2020, with Republican Rep. David Valadao in the Central Valley.

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Democrats turned to their big guns before this election — former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom — to get out the vote in California.

In an urgent plea as his party faced the potential loss of House and Senate control, Biden asked voters Thursday to go to the polls to support Democratic candidates, warning that a Republican Congress would reshape America by cutting back on health care and threatening abortion rights and retirement security.

The president’s return to heavily Democratic California in the run-up to Election Day reflected the looming threat for his party in a turbulent midterm election year when Republicans appeared poised to take control of the House, a grim prospect for Biden heading into the second half of his term.

His stopover centered on safeguarding Levin's district, which has a slight Democratic tilt and cuts through San Diego and Orange counties and was carried by Biden by double digits in the 2020 presidential election.

He said Levin “delivers. He lowers costs for families, caring for our veterans protecting the environment.”

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Biden was in a neighboring coastal district last month on behalf of another endangered Southern California Democrat: Porter. The Levin and Porter contests were among about a dozen congressional races in California considered competitive — a handful were seen a toss-ups and were viewed by both parties as critical to control of the House.

“If Democrats are scratching and clawing to hang on to districts Biden carried by double digits, they have likely already lost the House,” said David Wasserman, an analyst with the Cook Political Report said in the waiting days of the campaign.

Levin defended his seat with a 6-point win in 2020, and the district remained largely intact after the once-a-decade adjustment of boundary lines after the census. This year, his race was considered a toss-up as Levin and other Democrats face historical midterm headwinds that typically punish the party in the White House, while soaring prices at the supermarket and gas pump have conspired to make once-safe incumbents vulnerable.

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With less than a week before the election, the Cook Political Report shifted a number of California districts into the “Toss-Up” category — more than any other state. Three of those districts are currently held by Democrats while two are held by Republicans. Four other districts — two held by Republicans and two by Democrats — were also considered up for grabs.

The Cook Political Report rated as toss-ups:

• District 13: Formerly held by Democrat Josh Harder, this Central Valley district is open and Democratic Assemblyman Adam Gray is running against Republican John Duarte. The race is considered among the tightest in the nation.

• District 47: This Coastal Orange County community elected a Democrat for the first time in ages when it elected Porter in 2018. Prognosticators predict it will remain purple for years to come despite the fact that Porter is a darling of the Democratic Party. The race between Porter and former Assemblymember Scott Baugh, a Republican, could go either way.

• District 49: This purple district, straddling coastal Orange and San Diego Counties also switched from Republican to Democratic in 2018 when it elected Levin. But as is the case in neighboring District 47, redistricting carved into Democrats' slight advantage among registered voters. Levin faces the Republican former mayor of San Juan Capistrano Brian Maryott.

• District 27: This section of northern Los Angeles County has elected both Republicans and Democrats in the last six years, but Republican Congressman Mike Garcia faces a bigger challenge this year due to redistricting. He’s again squaring off against Democrat Christy Smith, whom he defeated by just 333 votes in 2020. The polling gurus at FiveThirtyEight give Garcia a slight edge in this race.

• District 22: This Central Valley district is another impacted by redistricting, this time to the left of the political spectrum. That adds to the woes of incumbent David Valadao, one of only two Republican members of the House who voted to impeach Trump and is still trying to get re-elected. He faces Democratic challenger Assemblymember Rudy Salas. The pollsters at FiveThirtyEight rate this race the tightest in the state but give a slight edge to Valadao.

Democrats were forced to play defense, even in a famously liberal state that then-President Donald Trump lost by over 5 million votes in 2020. Biden’s sagging approval rating created a drag on Democratic candidates generally, although voter surveys indicate he's stronger in California than the nation as a whole.

“Even in areas where President Biden won by a strong margin, we’re seeing an unfortunate shift,” Porter wrote in a fundraising pitch a week before election day. “Republicans are polling well across the country and we’re seeing especially concerning trends in blue states like California.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.