2 Calif. Democrats Deadlocked in Bid to Unseat GOP Incumbent
*By Christian Smith*
Democrats are in a holding pattern, waiting to see who will take on California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher in one of the key districts their party needs to flip in November to retake control of the House of Representatives.
Initially, California Democrats wanted to box Rohrabacher out of the race by stacking the ballot with two of their own candidates, but they were unable to game California's "jungle primary" system, said Jon Miller, the White House correspondent for CRTV.
"We know that the Democrats, they sunk millions of dollars into the 48th District," Miller told Cheddar. "They wanted to load the ballot with two Democrats, but we know that they're not going to be able to do that because Dana Rohrabacher is a confirmed winner there."
In California, the top two vote getters, regardless of party affiliation, get spots on the November ballot.
Rohrabacher, a 30-year incumbent, received more than 30 percent of the vote Tuesday, and will face either the businessman Harley Rouda, or the biomedical researcher Hans Kierstead. Those two Democrats were separated by fewer than 100 votes as of the [New York Times' last count](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/05/us/elections/results-california-primary-elections.html).
Democrats are hoping to pick up seven Republican-held districts in California that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. California's 39th and 49th districts are at the top of the target list; two longtime Republican representatives are retiring.
Congressman Ed Royce announced in January that he would vacate his seat in the 39th district after 26 years in office, drawing 17 candidates from both major parties into the race. (Two of them bowed out before Tuesday's vote.) The Republican former assemblywoman Young Kim and a Democratic philanthropist, Gil Cisneros, appear to be the winners of the primary.
In California's 49th district, Republican Congressman Darrell Issa is stepping down from the seat he has held for 16 years. Republican State Board of Equalization member Diane Harkey has guaranteed herself a spot in the November midterms. And 29-year-old Sara Jacobs, the granddaughter of the billionaire co-founder of Qualcomm, Irwin Jacobs, is waiting to hear if she or the lawyer Mike Levin, another Democrat, will earn the right to run for Issa's seat. Levin led Jacobs by more than a thousand votes as of Wednesday afternoon.
Results won't be official for a few weeks as the state still has to count the larger-than-expected number of provisional ballots.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder said [in a statement](https://www.lavote.net/docs/rrcc/news-releases/06052018_E-Day-Release.pdf) that the names of 118,522 voters were omitted from poll workers' rosters of registered voters at almost a third of L.A.'s voting locations. Voters left off of the roster were given provisional ballots.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/too-early-to-call-winners-in-key-california-house-districts).
As President Biden travels to Europe this week amid Russia's ongoing invasion of its neighbor Ukraine, former Obama campaign foreign policy advisor and former Bush administration State Department official David Tafuri, joined Cheddar News to discuss the president's stop in Brussels, Belgium, to coordinate with NATO leaders efforts to dissuade Russian President Putin's war. "The maintenance of sanctions and increasingly ratcheting up the sanctions is what he thinks will cause a country like Russia to back off," Tafuri said of Biden. "And so he's committed to that strategy."
John Logan, Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University, joined Cheddar News to discuss the growing unionization push by employees at Starbucks and Amazon, and the wider implications of employee organization at these big companies.
Cheddar's Arielle Hixson sat down with five Black women making history as part of the Biden administration's communications team. Karine Jean-Pierre, the principal deputy press secretary; Khanya Brann, the chief of staff to Kate Bedingfield; Amanda Finney, the chief of staff to Jen Psaki; Erica Loewe, the director of African American media; and Rykia Dorsey, the senior regional communications director, shared their stories.
President Biden has embarked on a crucial trip to meet with allies in Belgium and Poland to discuss new sanctions on Russia as it continues to wage war on Ukraine. The president will seek to address the growing humanitarian crisis out of Ukraine, demonstrate a united Western front against Russia, and reassure Ukraine that it has support from the U.S. Joel Rubin, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State & President of the Washington Strategy Group, breaks down what to expect from the President's crucial visit to Europe.
Catching you up on what you need to know Mar 24, 2022, with NATO meeting updates, Ukraine retaking suburbs around Kyiv, the spread of omicron subvariant BA.2 in China, Google Pay launching a third-party billing option, and a 16-year-old is suspected of being the Lapsus$ mastermind behind hacks of Microsoft and others.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell to its lowest level in 52 years as the U.S. job market continues to show strength in the midst of rising costs and an ongoing virus pandemic.
Alicia Garza joined Cheddar News to talk about the Black Futures Lab where serves as founder and principal. The non-profit organization seeks to develop grassroots power in the Black community with projects like the Black Census, which takes into account the granular experiences of the demographic. "What we know about Black folks and the reason that we decided to focus on black communities again, it's because we're being left out and left behind their stories being told about us without our input and without our shaping," she said. "If we want a robust democracy in this country, we have to change that equation." Garza also touched on issues around voter suppression and the midterm elections.
Sean O'Hara, President of Pacer ETF's, explains why investors who were down after Jerome Powell's remarks on inflation Monday were more optimistic on Tuesday as the major indexes ended the day near session highs.
