Lantos was one of the few Democrats to win a Republican-held House seat in the Reagan year of 1980. It’s certainly a world away from a time when a Republican could win a seat in that area.
It was Republican only because of a highly unusual special election. The seat had been, of course, owned by liberal Rep. Leo Ryan until his assassination. The Democrats were in total disarray from the special primary and also because of unrelated issues over high state spending by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Bill Royer, a moderate-to-RINO heavily backed by leftist RINO (now Democrat) Pete McCloskey (who was looking to build a political machine) in the adjacent district, was able to prevail. But Lantos expertly united all the rodent factions a year later and eked out a plurality win in ‘80 despite being outspent by Royer. That was the last time the GOP made any real inroads in that area and it has gone moonbat left ever since. Even if Royer had beaten Lantos in ‘80, Phil Burton’s infamous mass-scale disenfranchisement of Republicans gerrymander of ‘82 would’ve probably deposed him.