When I first met Katie through a mutual friend a couple of years ago, she was about to declare her candidacy. She was new and green and eager. Perhaps there was a gap between what she was saying and what I was understanding, but she appeared to be telling me she was a progressive. No doubt I was eager to hear that. In follow-up conversations and e-mails, that was reinforced. So it came as a great shock-- and disappointment-- when, during the campaign, she applied for and got an endorsement from the right-of-center, Wall Street-funded New Dems. Bye-bye, Katie.She was elected, the first Democrat in that once deep red but gradually changing district. Demographics predicted it would just be a matter of time before a Democrat won there. As of a couple of years ago, Democratic voter registration overtook Republican voter registration in the district, which is now just 43.4% white. Katie's campaign succeeded in inspiring Democrats and independents to vote for her; many were actually sending a message to Trump and the increasingly unhinged and out-of-step Republican Party. Obama had won the district narrowly in 2008 and then lost it narrowly in 2012. In 2016, Hillary won it more decisively against Trump, 50.3% to 43.6%. That same day Hillary was beating Trump, right-wing Republican incumbent Steve Knight beat a weak Democratic opponent, Bryan Caforio, 53.1% to 46.9%, over 16,000 votes. The district PVI was R+3 in 2014 and now stands at "even."The 2018 jungle primary was tough and 4 Democrats faced off against Knight. He took 51.8% of the vote-- ominous-- and Katie took 20.7% to Caforio's 18.4%, less than 3,000 votes separating them, but still not as many as Knight even combined. Voter turnout in November though was much stronger than in the primary, especially among Democrats, and Katie won-- and convincingly so:Los Angeles County makes up about 75% of the district and her win there was D+11. The Ventura County portion (Simi Valley) went to Knight, but barely-- R+1. And she was off to Congress. The Republicans are targeting CA-25 for a reverse flip in 2020. They have 3 candidates already fighting to take Hill on-- Lancaster city council member Angela Underwood Jacobs, Suzette Martinez Valladares, who describes herself as a believer, and former Navy pilot Mike Garcia, who has already been endorsed by two extraordinarily corrupt local former Republican congressmen, Buck McKeon and Elton Gallegly.So how has Katie been doing in Congress so far? First off: active. She's very aggressive and anything but a backbencher. And she's a mover and a shaker inside a freshman class filled with backbenchers. She joined both the New Dems and the Progressive Caucus but her voting record has been very good, more Progressive Caucus than New Dei thankfully. ProgressivePunch gives her a solid "A" and she's tied with 6 other freshmen as the 51st most progressive member of Congress, based on crucial vote scores; her's is 92.31.Her fundraising has been very strong-- over $560,000 for the first quarter, 82% of it coming from more than 6,200 individual donors. In the first race-- against an entrenched incumbent, she raised raised $7,654,693.Hill signed on as an original co-sponsor to Pramila Jayapal's new and improved Medicare-For-All bill and as an original co-sponsor to Bobby Scott's $15 minimum wage bill. My best bet? Katie will be comfortably re-elected in 2020.
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