A hyped up Democratic Primary during the heat of the Bernie-Biden race and Rouda only got 46% of the vote? I’m sorry, if I’m wrong come the day after Election Day so be it, but I see this is one of the top flip opportunities. Republicans will be turning out in greater numbers than in the Primary with a virtually un-opposed incumbent nominee. And I think it’s overlooked that Steel’s Supervisor is almost 100% in this congressional district; Rouda took 52% of the vote in Supervisor District 2 in 2018; Steel got 63% of the vote. Clearly a huge number of Rouda-Steel voters. That also said, I don’t always buy the “asking for debates so must be behind narrative.”

This is a district full of rich people who aren't particularly affected by Covid and probably find "defund the police" to be a threat to ivory tower ways of life. It's not a Democratic-trending district so much as an anti-Trump one. Even the results in 2018 indicated as such.

I’ll agree with Jason above too. I think 2018 was also more anti-Rohrabachur than anything else, although the anti-Trump factor was certainly there.

It’s likely Biden will win this seat with 55% of the vote.

Rouda will probably win again. Steel is a good candidate, but the GOP does have better options, and she's running in a bad year. Trump lost the district in 2016 and I doubt he'll win it back in 2020.

Huge if Republicans could hold onto this seat.

100 percent is in.

This race has not been called.

Can you not call a race when 100% is in?

No. Especially because all the votes are not in. California still has thousands (if not millions) of votes to count. We only call the race when a major news outlet (typically AP) hs.

I am not used to California politics.

Please remove the call.

I hit clear and I can’t remove call.

From what I’ve read, Orange County has counted particularly fast and the remaining mail in ballots in this seat are likely around the 8,000 to 10,000 vote range. Very unlikely that Steel doesn’t win but networks are being very careful about calling seats in California.

A lot of suburban voters are going to remember how much they hate the poors in 2022, so districts like these are going red regardless.

I'm sure the California redistricting board is gonna have lots of fun trying to draw Congressional seats for 2022

Honestly I wouldn’t even consider this seat to be as suburban as people label it, this is really kind of a luxury coastal city. Very exclusive coastal neighborhoods with maybe only the far western portion of the district around Huntington Beach and fountain valley having middle class communities.

https://twitter.com/Politics1com/status/1326226650208464899?s=20

Rouda apparently also announced he's running in 2022 after he conceded.

https://twitter.com/HarleyRouda/status/1326223203216236544?s=20

So happy with all these GOP pickups!

They prove me right again, but MSM does not care....

A big part of Rouda's win in 2018 was that he was running against Dana Rohrabacher. Against a normal opponent I think this was the most difficult of the Democrats' 2018 Orange County pickups to hold on to.

Garden Grove 2018: Rouda 2830, Rohrabacher 2336 2020: Steel 4409, Rouda 3841 Westminster 2018: Rohrabacher 5419, Rouda 5258 2020: Steel 9651, Rouda 7233 So, a slight difference in candidate quality (and a swing among Vietnamese-American voters) may have made a difference Newport Beach went from 22502-19634 for Rohrabacher to 31524-22917 for Steel

So, a slight difference in candidate quality (and a swing among Vietnamese-American voters) may have made a difference It was more than a slight difference in candidate quality - Rohrabacher was a particularly bad candidate which made it possible for Rouda to win this seat. It will be interesting to see what happens to all these competitive Orange County seats after redistricting.