- Democratic state Assemblywoman Christy Smith and Republican Mike Garcia are facing off in the special election in California’s 25th congressional district.
- The winner will serve out of the rest of Rep. Katie Hill’s term in the 116th Congress. Hill resigned from her seat in October 2019.
- The race is being conducted almost entirely by mail. Voters must either drop off ballots by 8 p.m. on election day or postmark mailed-in ballots by election day.
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The first batch of results from Ventura and Los Angeles Counties released a little after 8 p.m. Pacific Time show Republican Mike Garcia leading Democrat Christy Smith 55.7% to 44.3%. The race will likely not be called for several more days as officials process all mailed-in ballots.
Why this race is so important for both parties
This battleground district located in Southern California and includes parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, and the cities of Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, and Palmdale.
The district is one of several Democratic-trending districts in California to vote for Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
In the 2018 midterm elections, former Rep. Katie Hill flipped the district from Republican to Democratic with an eight-point victory over the then-incumbent GOP Rep. Steve Knight.
After only about 10 months in Congress, Hill, 32, resigned from the House after dozens of explicit photos of her were published on websites including the conservative blog Red State and the Daily Mail. Photos and text messages published on the sites, which are believed to have been leaked by Hill’s estranged husband as blackmail, revealed that he and Hill engaged in a polyamorous relationship with one of Hill’s paid campaign staffers, potentially in violation of House ethics rules.
On March 3, Democratic state Assemblywoman and former school board member Christy Smith and Republican Mike Garcia, a former Navy pilot and defense contractor, advanced through a crowded top-two jungle primary for today’s special general election.
The highly competitive special election is rated as a toss-up major election handicappers, including the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and is expected to be very close.
The winner of the special election will serve out of the rest of Hill’s term in the 116th Congress until January 2021, but Smith and Garcia will have a re-match in just six months for the regular general election in November to represent the seat in the 117th Congress.
California, which has an expansive vote by mail statute, allows voters to cast absentee ballots without an excuse. And due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, election officials mailed the nearly 425,000 registered voters in the district an absentee ballot while offering limited in-person voting options.
Winning back the seat was a big victory for Democrats in 2018. But despite party heavyweights like 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama stepping in to endorse Smith, Democrats are now lowering expectations for the outcome of this special election — and gearing up for a very possible loss.
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
If Garcia wins, it would mark the first time since 1998 that the GOP flipped a California district from Republican to Democratic.
For Republicans, Garcia is an ideal recruit as a political newcomer with a military background for a diverse district where the defense and aerospace industries are major employers. As a first-time candidate, he also has no legislative record to attack, allowing Republicans to focus on negatively highlighting some of Smith’s votes.
In addition to national Democrats reportedly being concerned with Smith’s steady but relatively unimpressive fundraising, Smith further got herself in hot water for seemingly mocking Garcia’s credentials for office in a video town hall, publicly apologizing after sarcastically joking of Garcia, “did you guys know he’s a pilot?”
National Democrats are also worried that Hill’s favorability in the district, which plummeted in the wake of her scandal, could hurt Smith’s chances, according to the Los Angeles Times and Politico. The outlets also reported Democrats were also taken off guard by Hill inserting herself into the race with a video she released on April 30 encouraging people to vote in the special.
As of Tuesday, 33% of registered voters had returned their ballots. While registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 30,000 in the district, 45% of Republicans have returned absentee ballots compared to 31% of Democrats and 22% of non-affiliated and other voters, according to data analysis firm Political Data Inc.
While the current absentee ballot numbers are an encouraging sign for Garica, they won’t guarantee him a sure victory. Historically in California elections, early ballots favor the GOP while later mailed-in ballots and the in-person vote, which will be very limited in this election, tend to trend Democratic.
The extraordinary public health circumstances surrounding the election also have a significant impact on the level of voter turnout and which groups are more likely to cast a ballot. The result of this special election will heavily reflect the current landscape, and won’t necessarily be a harbinger of things to come in November or spell trouble for either party going forward.
California accepts mailed-in ballots that are postmarked by election day up to three days after the day of the election, meaning this race will likely not be called for either candidate on election day.
The special election in California’s 25th district is the fourth special House election this year. Also on Tuesday, voters in Wisconsin’s Republican-leaning 7th congressional district will select a replacement for Rep. Sean Duffy.
