Now that California has held its lone U.S. Senate debate for the general election (that was Tuesday night, in Glendale, with Republican hopeful and baseball legend Steve Garvey forced to compete against a televised playoff game featuring his former two employers, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres), it’s time to realize that we’ve come a long way from Namibia.
Yes, that’s a reference to the southwest African nation that’s nearly 10,000 miles from the Golden State—an otherwise overlooked country that, four decades ago, played an oversize role in a contentious California Senate election.
Here’s how the geopolitics of the African continent found its way into California politics back in the day.
In 1982, then-governor Jerry Brown faced off against then–San Diego mayor Pete Wilson in a race to replace the retiring senator S. I. Hayakawa (among Hayakawa’s policy hobbyhorses: proposing an amendment to make English the official language of the United States).
Running as he was at the end of a second four-year gubernatorial term and after two failed runs for president in the past six years, Brown decided that a televised debate was the right venue to prove that he was more “worldly” than Wilson—i.e., better versed in global affairs. Thus, Brown blindsided Wilson mid-debate by asking his opponent where he stood on the United Nations’ Security Council Resolution 435, which called for the withdrawal of South African forces from Namibia and the creation of an independent nation.
But to Brown’s surprise, Wilson was up to speed on Namibia. (Years later, when I interviewed Wilson for an oral biography, he told me that he anticipated Brown trying such a stunt, so he’d boned up on world hotspots pre-debate.) Moreover, his campaign used Brown’s condescension for a little comic relief, printing T-shirts that read, “'Where in the World is Namibia?” (and on the back, a cheeky “Namibians for Wilson”).
The moral of the story: While the failed debate stunt wasn’t a death blow to Brown’s Senate chances, it was a reminder to voters that his style had worn thin after eight complicated years as governor. (Keep in mind: This was the early 1980s, and Californians weren’t pleased with Brown’s decision to authorize the aerial spraying of malathion to tame a Medfly infestation.) In the end, Brown lost California’s 1982 Senate race by almost seven points—the lone time he lost a nonpresidential statewide contest in the Golden State.
Fast-forward to 2024 and a California Senate debate that, on Tuesday night at least, didn’t land in the middle of an African land dispute, even if the current wars in the Middle East and Ukraine did come up for discussion.
And to the notion that the more worldy Democrat in the race (that would be Congressman Adam Schiff, of 2016 Russian election collusion and Trump impeachment fame) will lose as decisively as did Brown back in 1982? Don’t bet on it. California’s last competitive Senate race—a contest decided with a single-digit margin—occurred exactly 30 years ago, when then-Congressman Michael Huffington, a Republican, came within 2 points of upsetting the late Dianne Feinstein. (If not for an “October Surprise” in that race—the candidate admitting on the eve of the election that his family had employed an undocumented immigrant as a nanny—Huffington might have pulled off the shocker.)
That said, a lack of US Senate drama in the Golden State doesn’t mean that California’s choices a few weeks from now won’t impact the next Congress. Indeed, one can argue that the Golden State may hold the key to which party controls the House of Representatives next January.
How so? Credit 2024’s strange map and math.
According to the handicapping Cook Political Report, a mere 26 of all 435 House races fall under the category of “toss up.” They include 14 seats currently held by Republicans, five of which happen to be in California (the 13th, 22nd, 27th, 41st, and 45th Districts, covering a stretch of the Central Valley and portions of the Southland). Flip those five seats and House Democrats go from 214 seats (including two Democratic vacancies) to 219 and majority control.
And why is this exercise in seat-counting geographically “strange”? Because going back to the Cook Political Reports assessment, 9 of the 14 most imperiled House GOP seats in this election are in states that are reliably “blue” in presidential contests (California, New York and Oregon), whereas control of the US Senate likely runs through a pair of reliably “red” states (Montana and Ohio, where Democratic incumbents are hanging on for dear life).
So how will California’s endangered House Republicans attempt to survive this election cycle? Call it a study in political Darwinism—candidates learning to adapt to their environments.
One such example: Republican congressman David Valadao, seeking reelection in the 22nd Congressional District after narrowly surviving two years ago in a district that in 2020 preferred Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 13 points. Valadao’s approach: being selectively “Trumpy.” For example, asked by reporters if he favors Trump’s trade policies, Valadao suggested he supports some specific tariffs but not necessarily Trump’s proposal to impose tariffs on virtually all imports (the former president wants a 60% tariff on goods from China and up to 20% on most other US imports).
“If you’ve got a country that is subsidizing their product to import against ours,” said Valadao, “and they’re making it harder for our farmers to compete, I think there’s a spot where a tariff makes sense. On everything across the board? I think that’s a mistake.”
One other factor that California Republicans are banking on: familiarity, not just with House incumbents who have records of constituency service but also with one hopeful who’s well known in his congressional district. That would be Scott Baugh, a former Republican State Assembly leader and Orange County GOP chair now aiming to flip Democrat Katie Porter’s seat in California’s coastal 47th Congressional District.
In 2022, Baugh lost to Porter by 3 points despite Porter’s spending nearly ten times as much as her challenger (also not helping the Republican’s cause: Biden carrying the district by 11 points). While congressional polling in California is scant, a series of September surveys showed Baugh running slightly ahead of Democratic challenger Dave Min (a 3.7% advantage that’s within the polling margin of error).
As for California’s five “toss-up” races, the series of polls shows the following:
- In the 13th CD, the Republican incumbent trailing by 2%
- In the 22nd CD, Valadao trailing by 4.2%
- In the 27th CD, the Republican incumbent trailing by 1.4%
- In the 41st CD, the Republican incumbent running dead even
- In the 45th CD, the Republican incumbent trailing by 2.5%
That’s six pivotal California House races that lack a decided front-runner. Which raises the question of which party will do a better job of getting out the vote (voting, by the way, is already underway in the Golden State) —plus one other unknown that’s yet to play out: the strength of Kamala Harris’s coattails in her home state of California.
Despite her appearance on a California statewide ballot in four previous elections (for state attorney general in 2010 and 2014, for US senator in 2016, and for vice president in 2020), 2024 marks the first time that Harris has been at the top of the ticket.
That said, Harris doesn’t have a record of voter enthusiasm. A look back at California’s 2012 presidential election shows Barack Obama cruising to reelection in the Golden State (60.2% support) but receiving 10,340 fewer votes than Dianne Feinstein, who was seeking her fourth full Senate term. Four years later, California once again had parallel presidential and Senate races; however, Senate hopeful Harris received 1.2 million fewer votes than the Democrats’ presidential choice, Hillary Clinton.
Digging deeper into the results from those two election cycles: in 2012, Feinstein received 70.6% of the vote in Los Angeles County; in 2016, Harris received nearly 61% of the county vote (granted, that year’s Senate race was an all-Democratic, arguably “uninspiring” affair). But the good news for California Democrats: while Feinstein outperformed Obama in Orange County (her 46.6% to his 45.6%), Harris was stronger when it was her turn in 2016 (53.3% to Clinton’s 50.9%, which also speaks to the famously conservative bastion’s evolving partisan sensibilities).
In all, it could be a late night—maybe days and weeks of suspense, if previous California elections are any indicator—as the Golden State processes its congressional votes.
Including, maybe, a few Namibians having their say.
