Every two years, the primaries kick up a wonderful opportunity to peer into the future and take a sneak peek at fall election results. This crystal-ball moment comes courtesy of California's top-two primary system. Add up the aggregate Democratic vote and the aggregate Republican vote in each House primary, and you get a pretty solid picture of what the general election is going to look like — with the Democratic vote typically serving as the party's floor in November. In 213 California congressional races from 2012-2020 that featured one Democrat and one Republican, the median race saw Democrats pick up 2.1 percentage points from primary to general, while Republicans lost half a point . All in all, Democrats gained in nearly two-thirds of races. If you look just at 2012-2018 — a reasonable thing to consider, since the 2020 presidential nominating contest juiced Democratic engagement to an unusual and lopsided degree compared to Republicans in that year's primary — Democrats improved from primary to general in 74 percent of races. The median Democratic gain those years was 3.3 points, while the median Republican decline was 1.6 points. Given those facts, here's what California's 2022 primaries told us about the 2022 general election — with the caveat that there's still a handful of votes left to count in a few jurisdictions around the state: — Battleground Orange County may send all of its incumbents back. It wouldn't be unprecedented for one of the four battleground districts touching Orange County to flip — but it would have to be a big shift from the primary. Republicans got 57 percent and 59 percent, respectively, in the primaries for Reps. Michelle Steel and Young Kim's districts. Democrats, meanwhile, cleared the majority mark in Rep. Katie Porter and Rep. Mike Levin's districts. — Keep an eye on GOP Rep. Ken Calvert. Let's start this one with a caveat: Nothing about the political environment so far this election cycle suggests Democrats should be competing to flip Trump +1 districts, like Calvert's CA-41. And yet, the 15-term Republican congressman faced chatter through 2021 and early 2022 about GOP challengers, and then he pulled just 52.8 percent combined with the other Republican on the ballot in June. Democrat Will Rollins, the former federal prosecutor who advanced to November alongside Calvert, has tried to cast the race in nonpartisan terms, per the Riverside Press-Enterprise. — Rep. Mike Garcia is living on the edge again. One of the closest House races of 2020 could be heading that way again — with the same cast of characters, too. Garcia, the Republican incumbent, and two other GOP candidates collectively pulled a dangerous 50.4 percent in the primary. Democrat Christy Smith has lost to Garcia twice before but is back again for another try in November. — GOP Rep. David Valadao may have done the hard part already. The congressman saw off Republican competition (some of it boosted by meddling Democrats ) after voting to impeach Donald Trump last year, though he'll face a difficult race against Democratic state legislator Rudy Salas in the fall. Still, Valadao and the other Republicans got nearly 55 percent in the primary. Democrats overcame a bigger primary deficit to beat Valadao in 2018, but that was of course a completely different political environment. Salas has his work cut out for him to close the gap in November. What does this all mean for the country at large? Good question! Even though California looks less promising than other places, Republicans can still have themselves a wave election — that's exactly what they did in 2014. And some of these districts could defy the historical precedent, however strong it's been, under the pressure of a great GOP political environment. Or, it's possible it means that we're overestimating what the good-looking political environment really means for the GOP on the ground. Fortunately, we have another datapoint coming up soon to help us sort it all out: Washington State's all-party primaries in August. Stay tuned. Send all your election tips and tidbits to: sbland@politico.com or @PoliticoScott. Days until the Maryland primaries: 14 Days until the Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington primaries: 28 Days until the general election: 126 Days until the 2022 World Cup: 138 Days until the 2024 election: 854
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