Super Tuesday: Pacific/Mountain Primary Live Results

The big primary on the west coast today is in California. There a surprisingly competitive Senate race to replace Dianne Feinstein. There are also a bunch of House races which, because of California’s system where the top two candidates advance regardless of party, could effectively change the number of seat controlled by each party after tonight.

Other races I’ll check in on include the presidential primaries in Alaska, Utah and Colorado.

But let’s start with California and the Senate race there. This was supposed to be a battle between Rep. Adam Schiff and progressive fan favorite Rep. Katie Porter. However, Schiff has dominated the race thanks to historic fundraising levels.

The race is already the most expensive U.S. Senate contest in state history. Adam Schiff, a Burbank U.S. representative who has consistently led in polling, has spent a whopping $38 million ahead of the primary, outspending all his opponents combined and ranking second among all Senate candidates nationwide.

Katie Porter would have seemed like a sure bet to come in 2nd place and that appeared to be how things were going until last October when something unexpected happened. Republican Steve Garvey entered the race and he’s been doing pretty well.

In recent months, that has been a fight between progressive Democratic firebrand Katie Porter and Republican Steve Garvey, a former L.A. Dodgers star who jumped into the race in October and appears to be consolidating Republican voters…

…a projected “historically low” turnout, especially among young voters, is boosting Garvey’s chances and hurting Porter’s odds, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released last week. A third of likely voters in the primary are Republican, the poll said.

To be fair here, part of the reason Garvey is doing so well is that Rep. Schiff has spent his campaign money setting the election up as a race between himself and Garvey, a Trump-voting Republican. This helped Schiff because it reminds people of his role in the Trump impeachment but it also helped Garvey because without spending a dime his name has been on television constantly as the other major player in the race. A cynic might say that Schiff had decided to elevate Garvey knowing he’ll be easier to beat in the general election than Katie Porter.

In any case, the boosting of Garvey and the low turnout could turn out to be deadly combination for Porter. If she comes in third today, she won’t advance to the general election. And because Porter isn’t running for reelection in her House district she would not be back in DC next January.

Meanwhile, there are 10 candidates running for the seat Porter vacated. The leading four candidates are Republicans Scott Baugh and Max Ukropina and Democrats Dave Min and Joanna Weiss. Baugh ran a close race against Porter in 2022 and has been leading in most polls.

But there are several other races that are currently considered toss-ups.

California’s delegation currently has 40 Democrats, 11 Republicans and one vacant seat. And 10 of the 74 most competitive House races in the nation are in California, according to the Cook Political Report, including several in the Central Valley and Orange County.

The two top vote-getters in each race today, regardless of party, will compete in the general election — effectively a runoff — in November. 

In particular, Cook is rating CA-13, CA-22, CA-27 and CA-41, which are all currently held by Republicans, as toss-up races. So we’ll be looking for any surprises there tonight.

Finally, there is also a ballot measure up for consideration in California tonight. Prop 1 would raise $6.4 billion to fund new homeless housing and treatment facilities for mental health and substance abuse. Just a few months ago, polling for this was pretty high but it seems to have dropped off over time and this is another case where low turnout could have an impact on whether this passes.

Here are some Decision Desk HQ embeds for the states I’m watching. You may notice that there are two different embeds below for the CA Senate primary. One is to decide which two candidates will compete in the November election for a full 6-year-term. The winner of that race in November will become California’s newest Senator starting in January. That part is pretty straightforward.

The other one, the special election primary, determines who gets to finish out the end of Sen. Feinstein’s term. Yes, Gov. Newsom already appointed someone to fill out most of Feinstein’s term but that appointment ends in November. So whoever wins the special primary today has a runoff in November to becomes Senator from November until January at which point the winner of the regular Senate election will take over. Presumably the same person will win both races but it’s California so you never know.

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