- Jun 28, 2004
- 6,984
- 17,071
Nah, my district, the 8th district, will remain red for a long time without some gerrymandering to be completely honest.
Jerry Brown gonna have to press that button
I know, I was using a bit of hyperbole, I imagine that about half of the GOP's 14 CA Congress people will be unseated in 2018 whereas a slight "reconfiguring" after da 2020 Census could get ride of every CA GOP House member.
Don't count out the 8th flipping though. In 2018, the only truly safe seats will be in districts that are deep red and mostly rural-white or rural with white people and lots of undocumented people. So LaMalfa in the 1st, McClintock in the 4th, Nunes in the 22nd and McCarthy in the 23rd are safe.
Every other GOP seat is vulnerable throug ha combination of demoralized republican voters and mobilized and potentially mobilized Chicano voters. The 8th is such a district. You get the children of undocumented along the Colorado river, the liberal whites who are taking over the Eastern Sierra and the black and Latino folks in Victorville and the IE more mobilized and you can take this district.
I know it is almost a cliche but organization and turnout matters and in a place like the 8th it could matter even moreso. In the 8th, most of the people live in the IE/Victorville portion of the district, you could get a draw there and then the election gets decided on the fringes. If Mammoth-Bishop white liberals organize, drive to the puolls, pick up poor Latino hospitality workers and take them to the polls, we could win.
It is not even over the top to suggest that the majority of the next Congress could hinge on which East Sierra residents are willing to drive and pick people up during a snow storm. Will the good ole' boys drive the 30 miles into Lone Pine or will the white liberals be willing to take themselves and the adult children of undocumented workers to the polls in Mammoth?
As for me, the nearest vulnerable red district is the 25th. I'll be knocking on doors in Simi Valley because it will be so sweet to turn the district with the Reagan library and the site of the Rodney King verdict blue. If the 25th were to flip it would be due in no small part to black and Latino turnout in the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valleys. However, we need to have a rally at the park right next to the infamous East County Court House.
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