How did California's congressional seat get flipped?

[Ferrets are Cool]

"Republican Mike Garcia defeated Democrat Christy Smith in Tuesday’s special election for a vacant congressional seat in a swing district in the Los Angeles suburbs."

Is there a reasonable answer?

[samnsara]

1. i was hearing low dem turn out....but its all mail in!

[sweetloukillbot]

4. I saw something saying that the Dem ballot harvesting was down

Because of the pandemic, people weren’t out assisting older and Latino voters and collecting their mail-in ballots to drop off.

[Retrograde]

7. So people's hands weren't held?

It was an all mail election: all voters had to do was fill in the ballot and return it in the handy envelope that it came with.

In California, voting information is provided in multiple languages - English and Spanish by default on all the election materials (at least the ones the county sends out), and a number of others on request depending on the makeup of the county population. So I don't buy the "not assisting Latino voters" excuse. And older conservative voters never seem to have problems sending their ballots in, so that excuse is out.

I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the Democratic-leaning voters just didn't care enough to take the few minutes to vote.

[sweetloukillbot]

8. Ballot harvesting is an important GOTV tool

And a Republicans fought desperately to stop it in Arizona. So yeah, it might have made a difference, especially if it accounted for us flipping a red district in 2018.

[jimfields33]

12. I don't understand why republicans just don't collect ballots too.

Are they too dumb. Obvious answer. They fight for dumb things instead of using tool available. I am grateful for that though.

[JI7]

17. Even with Mail in Votes GOTV involves making sure people did vote and get their ballots turned in on

time.

[msongs]

2. traditional red seat returned to its red status nt

[quaint]

20. ↑ Yep

[marlakay]

3. Is that the area the young turks guy Cenk

Was running? If so some of his followers might not have voted. Hopefully in the fall they will.

[MFGsunny]

10. YES. n/t

[grantcart]

5. A Republican district with a better candidate

Excellent chance to flip back in the GE

Let's keep this in perspective CA Congressional Districts currently 45 Democratic 7 Republican

Non gerrymandered

[madinmaryland]

6. It was a Republican district for 20+ years. GOTV for the fall election.

[RhodeIslandOne]

9. It is a historical red district

We had it locked up for likely a dozen years, and people's personal shit got in the way.

[rockfordfile]

11. Clinton won that area. No excuses Democrats didn't do their job

[Xolodno]

13. No one reason.

1. Soon as Smith was the D nominee, the attack adds came out....painting her not as democratic enough, against teachers, etc.

2. Have to say it, organization was a bit lacking.

3. Her adds came out way too late.

4. Fundraising was on par with Garcia, but, PAC's were really gunning for her.

5. Low turn out....why, could be a hundred reasons...

6. Garcia, didn't run much of anything, stayed pretty quiet, didn't invoke Trump, some commercials were on some ideas that resonate...but not much else.

6 a. There was a strong campaign in the primaries against Steve Knight (former Repub holder)...and was trounced because of his votes to Trump. Garcia doesn't have that record, yet...then again, he may never, its only a few short months between now and November.

My speculation, the attack adds early are suspicious, almost reeks of a hit job from another primary candidate that didn't get the nomination. And that's I'll say.

[Ferrets are Cool]

14. This is the part that puzzles me

"Smith was endorsed by former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "

It is also worrisome.
If anyone thinks the November elections are "in the bag" they need to get their heads out of the sand.
We have to work HARD and CONSTANTLY to make sure we get that SCUM out of the WH.

[Mordred]

15. Garcia is a good candidate for the district

Ex- Navy, Ex-Def Contractor, not directly tied to Trump and Hispanic.

He'll have a tougher race in Nov with a higher overall turnout but Christy Smith will need to elevate her game.

[totodeinhere]

18. Democrats don't win every election. They never have.

The seat flipped from Republican to Democratic in 2018 and now it is flipped back. Things like this happen.

[Hoyt]

19. We just can't count on people voting in November, no matter how easy it is.

With all the crap trump has done in past 3+ years, isn’t about time we all wise up and take 5 friggin minutes to vote.

We shouldn’t have to encourage people to vote. It’s really disappointing. Hopefully, people will wake up by November and take 5 dang minutes to mail in a ballot.

[Politicub]

21. Better GOTV effort by GOP, most likely

This should be a wake-up call to not be complacent in the fall.

[Ferrets are Cool]

22. I hope so, however,

why the HELL should we need more wake up calls?
One would think that enough has happened to wake the dead.

[Politicub]

23. I would think so, too.

But it didn't seem to work out that way. I'm not familiar enough with the district and the people who were running, tbh. And, I haven't researched enough to know how hard the local party worked for the candidate.

Nationally, I do think there is a lot of motivation to vote against Trump. It's going to take a lot of work to get people to the polls or to return their ballots, though.