Scientists rarely get to create their own facts. Politicians do. Say something enough times, and people start to think it’s true. Like the idea that last Tuesday’s primary was a great night for San Diego Republicans. Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.
Let’s start with the numbers. In Congressional primaries, Republicans lost 3:2. They are happy that Carl DeMaio made the run off in the 52nd District, but there was never any doubt that incumbent Rep. Scott Peters would face a Republican in November. At the state level, Republicans won 2:1 in the Senate, and 4:3 in the Assembly. Democrats won two City Council races outright, while Republicans won one. Not exactly a dominant performance in legislative races.
Republicans did sweep the two County supervisor races, along with the District Attorney and the Assessor/Recorder/Clerk. So that’s a great night, right?
Maybe. Or it was a great night for incumbents, who almost never lose in San Diego. Every race mentioned, Democrat or Republican was won by an incumbent. Many were uncontested, and the tightest election, County Supervisor for District 5, featured two Republicans. The closest thing to an insurgent race was Councilwoman Lori Zapf winning in a new district. And the Barrio Logan Community plan was defeated.
The more important question is whether Republicans beat expectations. In that sense, I think of politics like a tennis match on a blustery day. There are two potential advantages: the serve and the wind at your back. You can have both, one or neither.
Democrats serve in November. They have the wind at their back in presidential years. This June they had neither, meaning Republicans had both. With those advantages, Republicans won all the races they were expected to win, and defeated a community plan whose supporters knew was dead on arrival in a June electorate.
How does that stack up in the annals of elections? The last time the Democrats served with the wind was November 2012. That year, they won open supervisorial and mayoral seats previously held by Republicans and defeated an incumbent Republican U.S Representative (redistricting helped). That’s a great night.
The only seat Republicans can even say they “flipped” was District 2, which last elected Kevin Faulconer, but where Zapf will replace the Democrat appointed to succeed him. They couldn’t put away District 6, meaning they go to November still facing the possibility of a veto proof Democratic council majority. Dumanis and Dronenburg won, but she hadn’t come that close to a general election in eight years and no one knew what he did until Susan Guinn tried to take him out. That’s not a great night. That’s scraping by.
The only time the crowd celebrates scraping by is when you’ve been losing. That’s the reality here. San Diego Republicans gained little from the national wave in 2010, and were positively drowned by the Democratic wave in 2012. In that sense, I guess meeting expectations makes for a great night. Celebrating it, however, is about as exciting as a kindergarten graduation. Still, they may as well pop the champagne, because it probably won’t keep until June of 2018.
