Four California U.S. Congress seats that might be up for grabs

While I was getting my hair cut the other day to prepare for roasting in Nevada, another customer began talking about the upcoming midterm elections. (Okay, I prompted a bit.) A transplant from Phoenix, Arizona to San Francisco, she allowed as how there's nothing to work on around here. Now that's not quite true, but I could see how moving in from a battleground state might leave her feeling out of the fight politically. 

And that reminded me that I want to post, courtesy of Dan Walters at CalMatters, a little about the few U.S. Congressional contests in California that could be highly significant.  Walters' words with my commentary in italics:

—Republican Mike Garcia, a former fighter pilot, defeated Christy Smith, a Democratic assemblywoman, in a special election for a congressional seat in Los Angeles’ northern suburbs in 2020. He then eked out a 333-vote win over Smith for a full term later that year, despite a 7.5% Democratic voter registration edge. Garcia hopes his third matchup with Smith this year will also be a charm, but the new 27th Congressional District has a 12%-plus Democratic voter margin, making him decidedly more vulnerable. What a marathon battle those two have had! The new district could be a very necessary Democratic pick up. 

—Katie Porter, a Democratic congresswoman from Orange County who has acquired a high national political profile, won her Irvine-centered district despite its slight Republican voter registration margin and her new district (CD 47) now has a slight Democratic edge, which should make re-election easier. However, Republican challenger Scott Baugh, a former assemblyman and current Orange County GOP chairman, is a formidable fundraiser whose hopes ride on Biden’s unpopularity. We need to keep Porter's white board out there. She's a hell of an asset, an Elizabeth Warren in the making, on the younger side of the necessary generational transition in our politics. 

—Hanford Republican David Valadao has been elected and re-elected by San Joaquin Valley voters despite a lopsided Democratic voter registration advantage. His newly redrawn, three-county district (CD 22) favors Democrats by more than 17 percentage points but Valadao hopes that his independent image — he was one of 10 Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump — will save him again. Having overcome stiff primary challenges from two other GOP candidates, Valadao now faces Rudy Salas, a Democratic assemblyman from Kern County, who counts on a high turnout of Latino voters to flip the seat. Dems keep coming up short against David Valadao. He's enjoyed districts where Democrats just don't bother to vote except in presidential years. Yet they have the registration numbers to win the seat -- again, a very necessary Democratic pick up for the next Congress. 

—Democrat Mike Levin has won two terms in Congress from a coastal region — northern San Diego County and southern Orange County — that was long a Republican stronghold, but the very slight Democratic voter registration edge of his redrawn district (CD 49) fuels Republican hopes of a win if national trends invade the turf. Former San Juan Capistrano Mayor Brian Maryott beat four other Republican hopefuls for the right to take on Levin. This one could be tough to hold. This is a rematch from the 2020 election in which Levin defeated Maryott with 53 percent of the vote.

My new friend at the hair salon isn't likely to throw herself into helping in any of these California contests. But as we talked, she mentioned that she'd been talking to her son just the other day; he seemed so disillusioned with politics. He did the voting thing the last time and what did it get him? She realized she did have something she can do: she can make sure her son and every one of his friends DO turnout in November.

That's how winning midterms will come about: thousands of conversations that help voters move beyond discouragement.