Voters Haven’t Read the “Red Wave” Script

While the TV talking heads continue to so blithely and blandly assure us that an inevitable “red wave” will sweep over the United States Congress come Election Day, Nov. 8, voters in Kansas, Alaska and New York have provided three examples of what’s actually happening on the ground, and so far the results don’t look much like any arch-conservative red wave.

On Aug. 2 in Republican-majority Kansas, fifty-nine percent of voters, including thousands of conservative Republicans, overwhelmingly defeated an amendment that would have stripped abortion rights from the state constitution, the first time substantial numbers of Republican voters have shown a shred of interest in protecting reproductive rights in decades. If the Republican success in outlawing abortion has at long last awakened a sleeping giant of pro-choice sentiment within the party, a historical shift could be underway, better late than never.

Then on Aug. 23, a popular Democrat, Pat Ryan, won a special election in New York’s CD-19, a swingy district that in any normal “red wave” year ought to swing Republican—and didn’t.

Then came a more stunning turn of events, in Alaska on August 31, when the results of a ranked-choice special election, held on Aug. 16 for the state’s single at-large congressional seat, was announced. For the first time in that state’s history, a Democrat—Mary Peltola, who is pro-choice and an indigenous Alaskan—was elected to congress, and she beat Republican superstar Sarah Palin, a former governor of Alaska, a former candidate for vice president, who fits neatly into the ideology of today’s Republican Party.

Red and Blue Waves in the Senate
If these results foreshadow November, then a “blue wave” to rival 2018 could be coming. Currently, the senate is evenly divided, with Democrats holding the majority by mustering 50 Democratic votes—sometimes easier said than done in this senate—plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to break tie votes. The mainstream corporate media has looked at this reality and spent the season saying, “Republicans only need to flip one seat to take over the Senate.”

The reverse, though, is also true–Democrats need only flip one seat to no longer be dependent on the vice president’s tie-breaking vote, and the senate map actually favors Democrats. They’re defending 14 seats while Republicans are defending 21. Many of the states in play were carried by Barrack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton and/or Joe Biden, including Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Iowa. If Democrats can coax that base back to the polls this November, even Republican leadership is beginning to admit a “red wave” is unlikely.

Democrats’ Chances to Hold House May Hinge on California
Analyzing Democrats’ chances of holding the house is far more difficult, with 435 seats spread over fifty states and district lines having been redrawn after the 2020 census. If Democrats can flip Republican-majority Alaska, though, more purplish districts could swing blue, too. The Republicans need only flip five seats nationwide to take control, but Democrats have chances to flip seats, too, including several in California. 

When California’s districts were redrawn after the 2020 census, many were shifted into entirely separate regions from the ones they encompassed in the previous decade, and many turned bluer. 

Here are some key California races to watch:

• CA-3: before redistricting was in the northern Central Valley and held by Democrat John Garamendi. His district has been redrawn as CA-8, where he’s running and expected to win another term. The new CA-3 has been shifted to basically corral the entire southern Sierra Nevada region into an open seat that leans Republican but isn’t completely out of reach for Democratic candidate Dr. Kermit Jones.
• CA-13: is one of three CA districts Ballotpedia classes as a “battleground” and another of many districts completely redrawn. Before 2022 it was Democratic superstar Barbara Lee’s Bay Area district. Now it’s shifted southeast into the Central Valley. The incumbent is now Democrat Adam Gray, formerly of CA-21, in a district that voted for Biden in 2022.
• CA-21: flipped blue in 2018 and back to red in 2020, but that was before redistricting changed it from Trump-majority to Biden-majority and shifted it south of Fresno. Democrat Jim Costa, formerly incumbent in CA-16, is now the incumbent here.
• CA-22: listed as a “battleground” by Ballotpedia, a seat Democrats would dearly love to flip—Devin Nunes, one of Trump’s most loyal lackeys in congress, held it for nearly ten terms, before resigning to work more directly for Trump. The seat is now open, and Democratic assembly member Rudy Salas could attract enough votes to put one more Democrat in congress.
• CA-27: in exurban northern Los Angeles County, much of this district used to be CA-25–which has shifted to incumbent Democrat Raul Ruiz’s district in the Coachella Valley area. This seat famously flipped blue for Katie Hill in 2018, only to see her resign after what house speaker Nancy Pelosi called, “some errors in judgment.” It flipped back red for now-incumbent Mike Garcia. It remains a key battleground. Democratic assembly member Christy Smith is trying a third time to unseat Garcia, in what’s now a Biden-friendly district. Despite being the target of relentless Republican attacks, she came within a few hundred votes of flipping the seat in 2020.
• CA-39: was a swingy seat on the border between southern Los Angeles County and northern Orange County seat under the old map. It flipped blue in 2018 and back to red in 2020, but it’s now shifted to the Moreno Valley area, where Democrat Mark Takano is the incumbent and expected to win re-election.

• CA-40: now encompasses most of northern and eastern Orange County, largely redrawn from CA-39 which flipped blue for Gil Cisneros in 2018 and back to red for Young Kim in 2020. This election is a key battleground district, with Democratic candidate Dr. Asif Mahmood hoping to defeat Kim, as the new district’s become bluer.
• CA-41: encompasses much of the former CA-42, but runs in an irregular pattern from Riverside to Palm Springs–and what was once a heavily Republican district has become several shades more purple. The Republican incumbent is ultra-conservative Ken Calvert, who’s been in congress thirty years and has a history of anti-LGBT bias, while the Democratic challenger is former federal prosecutor Will Rollins, a member of the LGBT community who’s courting the LGBT vote, which looms large in and around Palm Springs.
• CA-42: now centered in Long Beach where popular Long Beach mayor Robert Garcia, a Democrat, is expected to replace another Democrat, Alan Lowenthal, who’s retiring.
• CA-45: before redistricting was the very popular Democrat Katie Porter’s seat in southern Orange County. It’s now shifted to encompass several communities along the border between Los Angeles and Orange counties. This could be a red-to-blue flip because the incumbent here is not Porter, but Republican Michelle Steele, who currently represents the old CA-48. Her Democratic challenger, Jay Chen, beat her by a few percentage points in the primary.
• CA-47: formerly Lowenthal’s district, straddling the Los Angeles and Orange County lines, has shifted south to the Orange County communities of Irvine, Costa Mesa, and several beach communities. Porter, famous for using a whiteboard during congressional hearings, is running as the incumbent. The area is conservative but includes much of her old district.
• CA-48: before 2022, was the district represented by Republican Dana Rohrabacher for thirty years. The district flipped blue for Harley Rouda in 2018 only to flip back red for Steele in 2020, who’s now running for the CA-45 seat. The redistricting has shifted CA-48 south into what used to be CA-50 in San Diego County, where it remains a Trump-friendly district. It’s expected to remain red (with Darrell Issa as the incumbent), whether this season’s wave is red or blue.