posted 06-06-2018 10:30 AM                  

Neither party managed to land any knockout blows in California Tuesday as voters went to the polls there and in seven other states to pick candidates who will face off in the Nov. 6 midterm elections, when control of the U.S. House and Senate will be up for grabs.

The fate of President Trump’s legislative priorities will hang in the balance in November. Right now Republicans control both the House and Senate, but a swing of just 23 seats would give Democrats a House majority. The GOP holds a narrow majority of 51 seats in the Senate, with Democrats controlling 47 seats and independents who caucus with Democrats holding two seats.

California, home to the nation’s largest congressional delegation with 39 Democrats and 14 Republicans, has a so-called “jungle primary.” All candidates initially competed on a single ballot Tuesday. The two who come out on top go on to the general election, regardless of political party. This makes it possible for two Democrats or two Republicans to face each other in November.

The Democrats had hoped the jungle primary might give them a leg up on their campaign to win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives by capturing at least a few of the 14 seats the GOP currently holds in California – half of which Hillary Clinton carried in the 2016 presidential contest.

Going into Tuesday it looked like there might be a few seats – notably the Anaheim-area seat of retiring Republican Ed Royce – where the Republicans might be shut out of the general election.

That appears not to have happened – not in the Royce seat, not in the San Diego-area seat of retiring GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, and not in Huntington Beach where Republican Dana Rohrabacher, a former speechwriter for President Reagan seeking a 16th term, easily made it into the next round.

The failure to achieve what some were calling a “big, blue shutout” also didn’t extend to the gubernatorial contest. Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom easily advanced to the second round of balloting as did Republican businessman John Cox, who had the endorsement of President Trump.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – whom some hoped might make it into the runoff in place of Cox, setting up an all-Democratic general election contest that could have had a depressive affect on GOP turnout statewide – drew only about half as much support as Cox and finished a distant third.

This is quite a turnaround from what people were expecting even just months ago. The Trump presidency, in the considered opinion of some political experts, should have been the final nail in the coffin of the once robust, Reagan-producing, California GOP.

It might still. The latest figures show there are more voters in the state who’ve chosen to register as unaffiliated than who signed up as Republicans, with people blaming everything from the national party’s stance on immigration and abortion to the Trump tweets for the GOP’s weakness.

What analysts have missed all over the country is that while the Democrats are able to maintain political power in places like the Golden State, they’ve not be able to stop the state’s slide into economic and social oblivion.

Another factor is President Trump himself. His national approval numbers in polls have risen to a point somewhere in the mid-to-upper 40s, much higher than many analysts thought and most Democrats believed he’d ever be.

That means the suburban, college-educated, mostly white, Republican married women who appeared to desert Trump in droves in November 2016 (and who either voted for Clinton or just didn’t vote) may be starting to come home to the GOP, at least as far as voting for other Republicans is concerned.

This analysis is supported by two other figures, both of which presage a competitive, perhaps even victorious national GOP effort in the fall. The Real Clear Politics average has nearly 40 percent of those surveyed saying the country is “on the right track.” That’s about 13 points better than what it was during President Obama’s last year in the White House.

The number of people who say America is “headed in the wrong direction” is also down by about a third from where it was at the end of the Obama era.

That’s not a ringing endorsement for things as they are, but it does suggest the next national election will not be a “change” election like the last one was. Voters seem to like their tax cut and approve of the fact the country’s economic engine has restarted.

People are going back to work, the unemployment rate among all Americans is the lowest in decades and the black and Latino unemployment rates have never been this low since statistics have been compiled..

All that news helps incumbents, which this year means the GOP. The generic ballot test, where voters are asked whether they intend to vote for a Republican or a Democrat in the next election, is now just about even. Several months ago, before the tax cut passed and in the thick of unending daily chaos coming out of the White House, the Democrats had a double-digit advantage.

All this carries over into other states that held primaries on Tuesday. This was true in places like New Jersey, where the president has problems, and in the “Trump Country” states of South Dakota, Alabama and Montana.

More on other states here
http://www.foxnews.com/opi nion/2018/06/06/california-breaks-democrats-hearts-big-blue-shutout-fails-and-other-takeaways-from-tuesdays-primaries.html