In the June 5 primary, Santa Barbara voters face big decisions, from taxes on weed and the fate of Sheriff Bill Brown to Salud vs. Justin Fareed, The Sequel, plus the next occupant of the … wait for it … Auditor-Controller’s office.
Around California, meanwhile, there are a host of other campaigns and contests whose outcomes will reverberate throughout the state and across the nation. It starts with the paramount political question of 2018: Can Democrats snatch early defeat from the jaws of victory in their momentous bid to win the House of Representatives in November?
In the general election, Democrats must flip at least 24 House seats now in the GOP column in order to fracture Republican hegemony in Washington. Essential to their calculus is California, where Dems need to capture at least seven Republican seats — most in Orange County and the Central Valley, where Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in 2016 — to find a viable path to national victory in the fall.