Ricardo Franco (D)You may recall that a few days ago we looked at the race for the Democratic nomination for the Central Valley district (CA-22) occupied by increasingly despised Trump crony Devin Nunes. The DCCC has never contested this district before.
Dependably backward-looking DCCC 2018 electoral strategy is to target districts held by Republican incumbents that Hillary lost. In California that means going after 4 Orange County incumbents: Darrell Issa, Mimi Walters, Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce, plus Santa Clarita/Simi/Antelope Valley extremist Steve Knight and two in the Central Valley, David Valadao and Jeff Denham.
The thermometer on the right puts the strongest and most effective voices of congressional Resistance to Trumpism all on one page. The men and women on the page that opens if you tape the thermometer are the ones who have put a lot of effort into calling out Trump on his outrageous excesses. But look at the names on that page. None of them are just sitting around all day taking pot shots at Trump, the way, for example, Adam Schiff-- who wants to run for Feinstein's US Senate seat-- does.
Last November there were 5 congressional districts in Southern California with Republican Representatives that went for Hillary. In each one Trump did significantly worse than Romney had. In the district that straddles Orange and San Diego counties, CA-49, represented by Darrell Issa, Romney had won the district in 2012 with 52.4%. In November Trump got 43.2%, a 9 point drop-off. And Issa had the scare of his political life. His race was the last one decided in the whole country and in the end he edged out Doug Applegate 155,888 (50.3%) to 154,267 (49.7%).
