Despite being in office for less than 100 days, there is anecdotal evidence that the Trump Administration has fueled a surge in progressive enthusiasm across the country. The CA34 special election last Tuesday marked the first Congressional Special Election scheduled during the Trump Presidency. While Republicans make up 9.33% of that district’s registered voters, and while they weren’t going to turn out expecting to win, the lone GOP candidate in the 23-person field could only muster 3.35% of the vote, finishing in 9th place behind seven Democrats and one Green Party candidate. This dismal performance stands in contrast to even the 10.72% share that Donald Trump received in November. The GOP share of the electorate in Tuesday’s contest is on track to be the lowest for any election in the era of the Top Two primary where a non-write in Republican was on the ballot.
Across the country, in the upcoming April 18 special election in Georgia, Democrat Jon Ossoff, seeking to succeed Republican Tom Price in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional district, is riding a wave of grassroots support that has propelled his fundraising haul to over $8.3 million, with 95% coming from out-of-state contributors. Fundraising statistics for ActBlue, which bills itself as ‘the online clearinghouse for Democratic action’, offer up another data point. In the 1st quarter of 2013, it raised $16.9 million from 467,000 individual contributors. In the 1st quarter of 2015, it raised $26.9 million from 782,000. This year, ActBlue has reported receipts of over $111.3 million from 4.1 million individual contributors.
Candidate filings in recent days show a steady procession of progressives lining up for 2018 races, and early signs indicate that progressive issues will dominate the statewide races in 2018. In the aftermath of the House GOP’s stalled effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, health insurance has surged to the forefront of political discourse. Senator Ricardo Lara, a candidate for Insurance Commissioner in 2018, has introduced legislation that would create a single-payer system for California. Democratic front-runner Gavin Newsom has added a proposal for universal health care to his platform as part of his campaign for Governor.
Elsewhere, backlash to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has similarly spurred a number of candidates into action. Republicans in Orange County and San Diego County are facing unprecedented opposition. Of the 33 Assembly, Senate, and Congressional districts overlapping the two counties, Mitt Romney carried 18 of them in 2012. Last year, just 5 of the 33 went for Trump, while Hillary Clinton carried the other 28. Over the weekend, it was reported that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has moved senior staffers into the area in a targeted effort to flip those seats in 2018.
Republican Assemblyman Rocky Chavez (AD76-Oceanside) currently has four Democratic challengers (Ruben Major, James Medford, Michelle Cassel Gomez, and the fortuitously-named Elizabeth Warren). Indivisible activist Julia Peacock is challenging Ken Calvert in CA42. CA45 Republican Mimi Walters is being challenged by Ron Varasteh, her 2016 opponent, along with Kia Hamadanchy, a former aide to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and the son of Iranian immigrants, and UC-Irvine law professors Dave Min and Katie Porter (an acolyte of the other, better-known Elizabeth Warren).
Democrats Harley Rouda, Boyd Roberts and Laura Oatman are set to mount challenges to Dana Rohrabacher in CA48. And in CA49, Democrat Doug Applegate has tacked to the left following his narrow 2016 loss, competing with environmental attorney Mike Levin for the chance to take on Darrell Issa. Four candidates have filed to challenge CA50’s Duncan Hunter, currently the target of an expanding ethics investigation, including Ammar Campa-Najjar, an Obama Administration official of Palestinian-Mexican descent.
In California, the early days of the Trump Administration have been set against the backdrop of continuing erosion of the Republican Party’s increasingly tenuous toehold here – GOP registration is now at 25.87 percent – and have been marked by a surge in activity by progressive Democrats. But whether hostility towards the President, his agenda and his party translates into widespread acceptance of progressive policy solutions by California voters is something only time will tell.