Good recap, thank you. A few thoughts:
In the heavily GOP CA-04, a RAT had filed to run, but dropped out right before the filing deadline for “health reasons”; conservative stalwart Tom McClintock speculated that it was a ploy to try to help the less conservative Republican newcomer Art Moore make the runoff and try to win with Democrat votes and some Republican votes (kind of a reverse campaignPete strategy;if it was planned, smart move for the Democrats, since no one with a D next to his name could beat McClintock one-on-one). As Impy said, the Arnold-lackey-backed Moore appears to have eked by the impecunious indie (who would have been clobbered in the runoff, since he refuses to raise money and besides would not be able to take many GOP votes) and will try to beat McClintock by winning the Dem and indie vote as well as that of RINOs and uninformed Republicans. Fortunately, McClintock got like 55% in the jungle primary, so it looks like most Republicans aren’t being fooled.
CA-07 was very disappointing; Igor Birman is a solid conservative who would have had a good chance of unseating Bera. Ose is pro-abortion a d voted that way in Congress when he served in the early 2000s, and the rest of his voting record iwasn’t much better. Still, a 50%-70% conservative is better than a 5%-7% conservative, so Zi hope that Ose wins and we can go get him in 2016.
In CA-16, as in much of the Central Valley (particularly FOP Congressman Valadao’s CA-21), the 2012 Obama vote overstates the Dem lean of the area (there was larger than usual Hispanic turnout, and it largely rejected Romney). There are a lot of Portuguese (mostly Azoreans) there as well as Hispanics, and Congressman Costa is of Portuguese descent, as is Republican challenger Johnny Tachera (who, like Valadao and former Central Valley GOP Congressman Pombo, is of Azorean descent; I suspect that “Tachera” is an alternate spelling for “Teixeira”). Republican candidates outpolled Democrats by 51%-47%, and this should be a very competitive general election.
We came thisclose to gaming the system for the second time in a row in CA-31. The Hispanic-majority CD has a strong Dem lean, but we managed to get two Republicans into the runoff in 2012 thanks to 4 or 5 Dems splitting the primary vote. This time, we would have done it again had there not been a third Republican on the ballot. As it is, it’s a likely Dem takeover.
In CA-52, Sicko DeMaio made the runoff. Yes, he’s better than the RAT. No, I don’t really care if he wins or loses. I have no problem supporting an openly gay Republican, but not one who is pro-abortion and who wants to impose same-sex marriage.
David Valadao is a fop? ;?
Indeed it’s unfortunate that RINO Ose, Mitchum (because Fareed is more electable) and major social liberal Carla DeMaio advanced to the runoff. I’d like to see Birman run again, whether Ose wins or loses. DeMaio could have been beaten by a more prominent conservative, but none ran, unfortunately. 58% Republican in the primary, that’s the most by far for any of these targeted rat seats, part of DeMaio’s vote was probably non-Republican crossover.
Moore will be interesting to watch, if he tries too overtly to go after rat votes McC can paint him as the defacto rat nominee.
Looks like 3, 7, 16, 26, 36 and 52 are chances at a pickup while 9 and 24 probably aren’t, due to their rat leans and the financial non-competitiveness of the Republican candidates.