Election Night: Simi-Charmed Life: Tuesday brings us special elections for the U.S. House in California’s 25th District and Wisconsin’s 7th, as well as Nebraska’s party primary. Our live coverage will begin at 9 PM ET, which is when polls close in Nebraska and Wisconsin, at Daily Kos Elections; you can also follow us on Twitter for blow-by-blow updates. The polls will close two hours later at 11 PM ET in California.
The main event will be the contest in California’s 25th District to succeed former Rep. Katie Hill, a freshman Democrat who resigned last year after she was victimized by revenge porn. Both Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith and Republican Navy veteran Mike Garcia have raised and spent a comparable amount of money, and we haven’t seen any polls here since March. No matter how Tuesday’s contest goes, both Smith and Garcia will face off again for a full two-year term in November, where turnout should be much higher.
This seat, which includes northern Los Angeles County and a small portion of Ventura County (including the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley) swung from 50-48 Romney to 51-43 Clinton, and Hill flipped it last cycle. However, Republicans still do well downballot here, and Democratic candidates only outpaced Republicans 50.7-49.3 in the March all-party primary. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as a Tossup.
The coronavirus pandemic has also complicated voting here. In March, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered that all voters be sent mail-in ballots, though a small number of in-person polling sites will remain open to assist voters who need help in casting ballots.
There’s a good chance that we won’t definitively know on Tuesday evening who won. California took major steps years before the coronavirus to increase voter participation over the years by making it easier to vote, and importantly, officials are required to accepted ballots if they're received up to three days after Election Day so long as they are postmarked and mailed by Election Day. This means that a significant share of votes will not be tallied until days or possibly even weeks after the special election. The late vote has strongly favored Democrats in recent years, though things could be different in this mostly all-mail election.
The night’s other special congressional election, the contest to succeed former GOP Rep. Sean Duffy in Wisconsin’s 7th District, should be significantly less eventful. This seat, which covers the northwest corner of the state, swung from 51-48 Romney all the way to 58-37 Trump, and we rate this contest as Safe Republican. The GOP nominee is state Sen. Tom Tiffany, while Democrats are fielding Wausau School Board president Tricia Zunker.
Finally, Nebraska will hold its regularly-scheduled primary on Tuesday, and the main event will be the Democratic contest to take on GOP Rep. Don Bacon in the 2nd District. This Omaha area seat moved from 53-46 Romney to 50-48 Trump, and because Nebraska awards an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, both presidential campaigns are likely to fight hard for it. Daily Kos rates the general election as Lean Republican.
Three Democrats are competing here. The most familiar name to readers is probably 2018 nominee Kara Eastman, who announced she'd run again just a month after losing to Bacon 51-49 in a race that national Democrats appeared to have given up on. Attorney Ann Ashford, who is the wife of former Rep. Brad Ashford, is running to Eastman's right and arguing that the party needs a moderate nominee. (Eastman famously beat Brad Ashford last cycle in a big surprise.) The final candidate is restaurateur Gladys Harrison, who has raised very little money.