Blue state bastions deliver Democrats a consolation prize in the House

LOS ANGELES — Leave it to the Golden State to provide a rare ray of sunshine for national Democrats this election cycle.

Nearly a month after Election Day, Democrats clinched their final House win of the cycle this week, a capstone to winning four of the six most competitive California congressional races. Their strong showing, despite a statewide rightward shift that echoed national trends, led to the party ousting three incumbent Republicans and bringing them tantalizingly close to capturing the chamber.

In a cycle where very little went right for Democrats, their successes in California — and New York, another blue state bastion that delivered multiple red-to-blue flips — showed that the party’s relentless coastal focus paid some dividends. Democrats lavished far more attention, and crucially, money, on key races in those states compared to two years ago, enabling them to prevail against stiff political headwinds, sometimes by the barest of margins.

That consolation prize was enough for Californian and third-ranking House Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar to take a victory lap Wednesday after a caucus meeting, which featured newly-minted winner Adam Gray — who took his Central Valley race by just 187 votes — beaming in via FaceTime.

“Ultimately, these candidates and their stories is what broke through,” Aguilar told reporters at his weekly news conference. “Netting three seats was a very big deal for California, a point of pride.”

While precinct-level deep dives are still to come, Aguilar sketched out in broad strokes what he saw as the Democrats’ successful formula in his home state: better candidates, more resources and driving a message on “quality of life issues.”

That combination helped reverse two consecutive cycles of setbacks for California Democrats, who swelled their ranks in the 2018 blue wave, only to lose four seats two years later and fail to reclaim them in 2022.

"Clearly, 2018 was the high water mark, and since then, all they've been able to do is claw back some of the territory that they lost,” said Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan campaign almanac.

In California, winning back that ground was an expensive proposition. In 2022, Democratic challengers were perpetually outgunned by cash-flush GOP incumbents. The party’s House campaign arm and the affiliated outside group House Majority PAC abandoned the expensive Los Angeles media market entirely, which touches four hotly-contested districts.

This time, Democratic candidates routinely posted seven-figure fundraising hauls, putting them in a position to more efficiently buy TV airtime. And they were boosted by substantial investments by the party and major super PACs, which early on oriented their funding goals in anticipation of the high cost of playing in those races.

“We knew from the onset how important these seats would be, and so did Republicans,” said Dan Gottlieb, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Ultimately, we had a better formula to win these races and defy the political headwinds blowing the GOP’s way, and now these dysfunctional Republicans will have to manage through the smallest House majority in nearly a century.”

House Majority PAC also identified the California races early on as top priorities and set an initial spending target of $35 million. It ended up spending $50 million — almost five times more than it did two years prior.

Labor unions, another essential part of the Democrats’ arsenal, zeroed in on the state’s congressional races in a way they hadn’t since before the pandemic, said Lorena Gonzalez, who leads the California Labor Federation.

“When we are focused and we don't end up in 10 different places, we do much better,” Gonzalez said, noting the labor movement sidestepped two major ballot initiative clashes with business groups, clearing the way for a single-minded focus on the House.

Republicans on the ground felt the disparity — particularly after former Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the speakership, denying vulnerable incumbents a powerful home state patron.

“We got outspent by $6 million,” said GOP Rep. John Duarte, who lost by a dental-floss thin margin to Gray. He acknowledged getting support from the national party and Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC directed by Speaker Mike Johnson.

“But if you look at the McCarthy money and some of the other independent expenditures, it never came in,” he said.

New York Democrats similarly swelled their efforts after being stunned by the loss of four House races in 2022. House Majority PAC plowed $50 million into the state, nearly quadrupling its previous investment, and two separate efforts founded in the wake of the midterm drubbing beefed up the Dems’ ground game.

The New York Democratic Party launched a “coordinated campaign” — led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was blamed for some of the 2022 losses — that knocked three times more doors in battleground districts than in 2022. A coalition of labor unions and left-leaning groups called Battleground New York raised $11 million and focused on turning out three groups: “drop-off voters,” voters of color and newer voters.

As a result, Democrats flipped four seats between a February special election and last month’s contests, reversing their midterm losses.

Two of the newly elected New York House Democrats — Laura Gillen and Josh Riley — won after losing by mere points in 2022, both appealing to independent and Republican voters and voicing their willingness to stand up to their fellow Democrats on border security.

“Frankly, I think in 2022, we, the Democrats, were surprised by some of those races, and certainly had not put a lot of money or organization or attention into those,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. “This time around, there was no surprise. … the state party was far more involved. Certainly, we in the delegation in Congress were very actively campaigning in those districts, and you just had high-quality candidates.”

California Democrats also credited their candidates with being able to defy their party’s gloomy national prospects, often running ahead of Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.

“Each one was able to establish a brand, a narrative that did not fit neatly into what Republicans were trying to label all Democrats as nationally,” said Orrin Evans, a Democratic strategist who worked on two winning toss-up Orange County races.

One client, Dave Min, is a Korean American former state lawmaker who embodied the demographic changes that had transformed ruby-red Orange County to a purple battleground. He was able to hold the seat left vacant by outgoing Rep. Katie Porter, despite lacking her commanding spending advantage or national profile. He did it by running offense on public safety, overcoming his party’s soft-on-crime stereotype and his own drunken driving arrest.

“Dave Min was endorsed by every law enforcement organization in the state,” Evans said. A messaging war on crime “was a debate we were eager to have,” particularly given Baugh’s own past scrapes with campaign finance violations.

In a neighboring Orange County district, Derek Tran, a Vietnamese American first-time candidate, was well-positioned to peel away support from Little Saigon and defeat incumbent GOP Rep. Michelle Steel by roughly 650 votes.

Democrats had failed in two consecutive cycles to dislodge Los Angeles-area GOP Rep. Mike Garcia, despite their party’s double-digit registration advantage. This time, the party backed George Whitesides, the former CEO of Virgin Galactic. Whitesides’ profile — his ability to self-fund, plus his business background that resonated in a district with a heavy aerospace presence — earned grudging respect, even from Republicans.

“George Whitesides was probably the Democrats’ most impressive new recruit that they got throughout the entire country,” said one national GOP strategist who was granted anonymity to speak frankly. “I don't think there was a better first-time candidate for them this cycle than in that seat.”

A sterling candidate profile can only go so far. Will Rollins, a former prosecutor who ran for a second time against Rep. Ken Calvert, the dean of the state’s GOP delegation, was a top-notch fundraiser and had a telegenic television presence, but it was not enough to overcome the red tilt of the Inland Empire district — though fellow Democrats don’t fault him for it.

“I only wish Will Rollins would run again,” said California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. “He was the perfect candidate for that race. It's just that that was a really tough seat.”

Rollins was the only California Democrat to seriously challenge a GOP incumbent in a district that Donald Trump won in 2020. In the other five seats, Democrats were playing on blue-tinted territory. But even a 13-point party registration advantage was not enough to unseat Republican Rep. David Valadao, who easily beat his Democratic challenger Rudy Salas.

There are some ominous trends for the party even in its victories, such as Gray’s whisper-thin win in a majority-Latino district where Democrats have a nearly 11-point registration edge. Early in the cycle, Gray cited those figures in arguing that, in a presidential year turnout, the math favored the Democrats. That ended up being just barely true.

“It’s a warning sign that Democrats are getting from all corners of the country, which is that lower-propensity voters are no longer their friends,” said Rubashkin of Inside Elections.

Republicans point out that Democratic football spiking makes their wins look more impressive than they actually are.

“How insane is it that the Democrats are having to spend $40 or $50 million in traditionally blue states and blue districts, which is supposed to be their territory, because they were so lackadaisical the last couple of cycles that they kind of screwed up, let those seats go and then they almost lost these seats [this time],” said the national GOP strategist. “I mean, 650 votes is nothing to be that proud of after you've spent however much money that they did.”

For now, though, Democrats are accentuating the positive, choosing to bask in their net gain of one House seat, giving Republicans just a 220-215 margin and success of ousting California Republican incumbents who have bedeviled them for years.

“Mike Garcia and Michelle Steel have been survivors since 2020 and that's impressive,” said CJ Warnke, spokesperson for House Majority PAC. “To beat people who are able to hold on in a district like that, you need to recruit the highest quality of candidate.”

Dustin Gardiner contributed to this report.