ICYMI: L.A.’s Last House Republican Fights for Survival [National Journal]

ICYMI

L.A.’s Last House Republican Fights for Survival [Excerpts]

National Journal

June 29, 2016

By Kimberly Railey

…Fresh­man Rep. Steve Knight is the last Re­pub­lic­an in Con­gress to call Los Angeles County home, but he has a fight on his hands to keep that title.

…“This is the first time that I be­lieve that seat is in play,” said Eric Bau­man, chair of the Los Angeles County Demo­crat­ic Party. “Ca­forio brings more to this race than any Demo­crat­ic can­did­ate has in a long time.”

…Since 2012, the GOP’s 17,000-voter-re­gis­tra­tion ad­vant­age has col­lapsed, and Demo­crats now hold a 3,000-voter edge in the dis­trict based in the north­ern Los Angeles ex­urbs.

…Knight’s fun­drais­ing is again on shaky ground, es­pe­cially in this pro­hib­it­ively ex­pens­ive me­dia mar­ket and com­pared with the totals of oth­er vul­ner­able GOP in­cum­bents.

…Demo­crats are also em­boldened by the res­ults of the dis­trict’s gen­er­al elec­tion in 2012, when the well-known McK­eon drew 55 per­cent against an op­pon­ent they view as weak­er than Ca­forio…

…The party is cast­ing Knight as too ex­treme for the mod­er­ate dis­trict, point­ing to his re­cent com­ment that So­cial Se­cur­ity was a “bad idea” and his vote in the state Sen­ate against ban­ning Con­fed­er­ate sym­bols on state prop­erty.

…In the long term, Re­pub­lic­ans con­cede Demo­crats’ grow­ing voter-re­gis­tra­tion ad­vant­age will make the dis­trict harder to hold.

…“This dis­trict is not go­ing to be a safe Re­pub­lic­an seat un­der its cur­rent con­fig­ur­a­tion,” said Cali­for­nia GOP con­sult­ant Dave Gil­liard.