Primary Elections Live Updates: California and New Jersey News
Primary voters in seven states, including California and New Jersey, go to the polls on Tuesday to select their party’s candidates for statewide offices, like the governors of New Mexico and South Dakota; for mayor of Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest city, and for dozens of House seats.
Crime is very much on the minds of Californians: San Franciscans are deciding whether to remove their district attorney, and Angelenos are weighing whether to elect as their next mayor a longtime Democratic insider or a billionaire former Republican who promises to crack down on crime and homelessness and clean up the city.
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is not expected to have much opposition as he seeks an eighth term this November at age 89. Other races offer more drama.
Here’s what to watch for in Tuesday’s contests in New Jersey, Mississippi, Iowa, South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana and California:
A true battleground map comes into view
In most of the country, congressional redistricting shored up incumbency for both parties. Tuesday will showcase much of the battleground that remains. Of the 53 House seats that the nonpartisan Cook Political Report sees in play, nine are in California, New Mexico and Iowa.
And for once, Democrats will be watching districts where they can play offense: four Republican House seats in California, now held by Representatives David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Michelle Steel and Young Kim, and one in New Mexico, held by Yvette Herrell.
If those races do not add a little suspense to the vote Tuesday, California’s unusual primary system could give political obsessives a very late night. Under the system, established under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the top two vote-getters on primary night face off in November, regardless of party.
Invariably, a few races end up with a Republican facing off with a Republican or a Democrat meeting a Democrat, leaving one party iced out. Some seats could be guaranteed to change hands based on Tuesday’s results.
Democratic miscalculations and lost opportunities
In New Mexico, Democrats in full control of the state capital in Santa Fe took a chance, making a safe seat in the state’s picturesque north less safe by dipping the district’s boundaries south, in hopes of taking southern New Mexico’s Republican seat.
But in a bad Democratic year, they may have overplayed their hand: Rather than hoping for a sweep of the state’s three House seats, Democrats now are worrying that Republicans could hold that seat and grab another.
Redistricting in California was in the hands of a nonpartisan commission, which put Democrats into position to take some Republican seats and elect the first Hispanic representatives in the Central Valley.
But Democrats could also lose some House seats, including the one held by Katie Porter, one of the party’s rising stars. Besides Ms. Porter, Representative Mike Levin on the Southern California coast is sweating his re-election, and a new seat in central California, the 13th District, should be Democratic in an ordinary year, but this is not that.
Democrats had also hoped to make a play for the Iowa Senate seat held by Mr. Grassley. But Mr….
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