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Posted on 06/07/2026 9:21:33 AM PDT by Red Badger
Decision Desk HQ made the call Saturday night after several days of vote counting: Democrats are out of California's 40th Congressional District. Rep. Young Kim advanced out of the primary alongside Rep. Ken Calvert, and November will be a Republican-versus-Republican.
California voters passed Proposition 50 last year, redrawing the state's congressional maps. Governor Gavin Newsom (D) was the driving force behind it, and the stated goal was flipping Republican seats. The new 40th was supposed to be one of them. The plan was to jam two Republican incumbents into the same district, let them bloody each other, and walk in and take the seat.
Calvert finished first with about 36 percent of the vote. Kim was second at around 21 percent. Democrat Esther Kim-Varet was third at roughly 16 percent. In California's top-two primary, third place is the same as last place. She is done.
Calvert did not wait around to claim victory.
"Tonight makes it clear that voters want an effective and consistent conservative who has been with President Trump from Day One. I look forward to winning this race in November."
Kim's campaign pushed back on the spending gap and made clear they were not going anywhere.
"While there are many ballots left to be counted, despite being outspent 10 to 1, we are confident that Congresswoman Kim will be advancing to the November election and that she'll put an end to Ken Calvert's 30-plus years of failing to deliver for the people of Southern California."
Before Proposition 50, Calvert held the 41st, and Kim held the 40th. Newsom's map wiped out both of their districts and dropped them into the same one, and a race that went national fast was the result.
By mid-May, more than $17 million had been raised in the 40th, making it one of the most expensive House primaries in the country. Kim raised $7.5 million while Calvert raised $5.1 million. The TV ads were brutal. Both sides questioned the other's conservative credentials and loyalty to Trump.
Read More: Banana Republic by Mail: Why We Probably Won't Know Outcomes of CA's Crucial Primaries for Days
Young Kim Holds the Line for CA-40, Defeats Asif Mahmood
A Calvert-aligned ad called Kim a RINO and told voters to "stop liberal Young Kim before she stops Trump." Kim's campaign hit back by dredging up a 1990s incident in which Calvert was found in a car with a prostitute, calling him a "sleazebag."
Democrats sabotaged themselves. Rather than consolidating behind one candidate, the party ran multiple people in the 40th and split the vote. Kim-Varet raised $2.1 million and was the strongest of the bunch, but several other Democrats and an independent stayed in the race anyway.
Kim's campaign accused Calvert allies of spending roughly $1 million boosting a Democratic candidate in an effort to prevent Democrats from consolidating behind Kim-Varet. Kim-Varet called the stragglers out directly, comparing them to Antonio Villaraigosa, who stayed in the governor's race long enough to drain votes from other Democrats.
"They were the Antonio Villaraigosas in the district who stayed in and pulled votes away that we needed to get into the top two."
Democrats will have no one on the November ballot in a district Newsom's team specifically engineered to flip. Voters in the 40th will choose between two Republicans who spent months and millions trying to destroy each other.
The seat stays Republican regardless of what happens in November. Newsom drew a map designed to cost Republicans seats in California, and in the 40th, it cost Democrats a shot at one instead.
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This is the district that I live in. It used to all be in Orange County which is mostly Conservative. The Democrats redrew it and it now includes area of Long Beach, which is in Los Angeles County. This time it backfired on the Democrats.
As property values keep rising along beachfronts, the residents become more conservative....................
I wonder if the wealthy beach dwellers will become conservatives (for California at least) when they have to pull permits and deal with the Coastal Commission to rebuild their houses that burned down. I dealt with them nearly 30 years ago just as a laborer on construction projects. I can only imagine how bad they are now.
Good FINALLY something good happens in this state..the commies have rigged everything enough, they are stealing the mayors race and will steal the Governors race too
“Democrats Drew This California Seat to Flip It”
100% false headline and/or the author is an idiot.
This district was created to (within reason) pack as many Republicans into it as possible — it’s now an R+7 district — in order to gerrymander every adjacent district to favor Democrats.
It throws 2 Republican incumbents (Calvert, Kim) in together, thus being certain to eliminate one, and there was never any doubt that one of those two Republicans will win it in November. “Created in order to flip it”? LOL.
The 3 GOP candidates in the primary combined for almost 60% of the vote which, in California, is gigantic. Certainly a Rat COULD have made the November ballot (and then lose by 15 points), but it didn’t happen.
The district which could have been the REAL subject of that headline is not CD-40 but rather CD-6. As of election night no Democrat was slated to advance. Of course thanks to California’s legalized Democrat vote fraud that is no longer true 5 days later. As a result, Democrats went from being shut out in CD-6 to achieving almost a guaranteed win in November.
Hopefully Young Kim will lose. She’s an open borders RINO. She was also firmly with the RINOs on Jan 6 and wanted to censure President Trump.
“The Democrats redrew it and it now includes area of Long Beach, which is in Los Angeles County. This time it backfired on the Democrats.”
This district contains no part of Long Beach nor any of Los Angeles County. Nothing backfired, it was always set to elect a Republican. The breathless clickbait article headline is totally false.
See also post 6.
I assumed the change would create weak districts that could be taken by GOP’s,
Thank you.
It is sad people write this stuff with zero facts or reality and that it gets distributed and believed by those who read it.
I understand why we want to find *something* good in the situation in California, but the fact is that Republicans win only those districts which Democrats permit them to win.
And CD-40 is clearly one of those. CD-40 wasn’t some gross “error” on the part of Democrats, it was totally by design.
Anytime one party or the other redistricts a state in order to try to gain a severe advantage overall, there is always the possibility of a “dummymander”, which is a gerrymander that actually does backfire.
California this year is definitely NOT one of those. Democrats not only screwed Republicans to the greatest extent they felt they could get away with, but they shored up many of their potentially vulnerable incumbents as well (e.g. Josh Harder and George Whitesides among a few others).
Hopefully Republicans haven’t overreached in Texas and Florida, but numerous people are counting new *tossup* districts in those states as *guaranteed* Republican gains now, which (if they would actually look at the data) is foolish.
Yes. They did succeed in turning two R in congress to one.
Author and headline writer are idiots.
Thanks for the clarification
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