California has long been a Democratically held state, with some districts and counties voting deep blue for nearly two decades or so. However, within the last few years, that seems to be changing somewhat. Maybe people are finally growing tired of leadership that gets them nowhere. Or perhaps they are fed up with the constant hypocrisy and lies.
Whatever the case, California is slowly turning red, even if it’s one small district at a time. And it seems we are getting more and more proof of this every day, what with an election cycle finally drawing to a close and all.
The latest turn is that of California’s 25th Congressional District, which is located in the northern part of Los Angeles County and the eastern portion of Ventura County. It is home to cities like Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster, and the north part of San Fernando Valley. It is also the district that used to employ the now infamous former congresswoman Katie Hill.
If you remember, the quite liberal Hill was pretty much forced to resign last year when allegations and photos of her illuding to several sexual relationships with more than one of her staffers became public.
Naturally, after her resignation, a special election was held in May of last year. But no candidate arose to receive more than the needed 50 percent needed to win. And so a runoff election was held.
The candidates were first-timer Mike Garcia, a Republican, and Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith. Garcia won easily in the district to everyone’s shock.
However, with an election year coming up, it was assumed that his victory wouldn’t last long.
When November came, and the election was held, things looked like they would sway in Smith’s favor for a while. But as with many elections, it was hard to actually determine a winner, what with mail-in ballots taking weeks to count and all.
Finally, after a few weeks in, enough votes were counted that Garcia felt comfortable announcing his victory, although not all votes were actually counted.
And on Monday, that victory became permanent, at least for the next two years.
Smith conceded to Garcia on Monday, saying that while she didn’t get the win she was hoping for, she was proud of herself and her voters.
One thing was evident, though, the race was much closer than Smith and Garcia’s last battle for the seat.
Smith lost the race by a mere 333 votes. Talk about making every vote count.
And this wasn’t the only race in the state where Republicans won by a surprisingly small number. In fact, the GOP flipped four House seats this year in the state, all in a similar fashion.
In Orange County, Republican Michelle Steel won by just 2 percent. And former representative David Valadao won in San Joaquin Valley by only 1,500 votes. And Democrat Gil Cisneros was ousted by GOP Young Kim by about 4,000 votes.
As you may have heard for weeks before the election, Democrats everywhere expected to see a massive “blue wave” take place across the country. On Election Day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even spoke about their expected gains, suggesting that they would not only keep their majority but also strengthen it considerably. She and others also thought they might be able to retake the Senate majority as well.
But that’s not exactly what has happened.
Not only did they not gain hardly any new seats, but they managed to lose quite a few. According to the New York Times current count, the GOP has flipped a total of 13 seats so far. And there are still four more to go, several of which are assumed to sway to the right.
And this could be a significant problem for the Dems in the coming weeks. In fact, that if they lose much more, they will be in jeopardy of losing that majority they are now so desperately clinging to. The majority in the House is held by the party that can get at least 218 seats. Dems only have 222.
This leads many to suggest that in 2022, the House will return to a Republican majority.