November 12, 2018

Even When They Lost, California Democrats Made Big Gains in Republican Districts

Check out this chart.

This year, the Democratic Party targeted 10 Republican-held California congressional seats it felt it had a pretty good shot at flipping. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in seven of these districts, including some reliably Republican ones Southern California. The decision to focus on those races partly paid off, though the final results aren’t in yet: three seats flipped, four stayed red, and three races are still too close to call.   

The results from those 10 districts already show that Democratic candidates improved their party’s performance across the board. In the seven decided races, this year’s candidates’ vote share was an average of eight percentage points higher than that of the 2016 Democratic candidates in their districts.

Democrats increased their vote share in all 10 of California’s hottest races


Some gains were impressive: Harley Rouda, who defeated Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, got 52 percent of the vote; the previous Democrat to challenge the 15-term incumbent got just 42 percent. Ammar Campa-Najjar also did 10 points better than his predecessor. The biggest jump was in the 22nd District, where Andrew Janz pulled in 12 points more than the Democratic candidate two years ago.

Though Campa-Najjar and Janz lost to Rep. Duncan Hunter and Rep. Devin Nunes, respectively, their performance illustrates the gains California Democrats made in heavily conservative districts. The Democrats in the four races where Republicans retained their seats improved their party’s vote share by an average of 8.9 points. 

The three Democrats who have won their races (so far) expanded their party’s vote share by an average of 6.8 points. Based on the most current vote tallies from the California secretary of state, Democrats in the three uncalled races have outperformed their predecessors by an average of 5.7 points.

A more complete assessment of how well the Democrats’ California strategy fared could take a little while: The final results in those last three races may not be known until Thanksgiving. 

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate