NYT's Nate Cohn: 'Unlikely' that California Democrats will be shut out of November elections

[RandySF]

Link to tweet

[Cha]

1. Damn that sounds

crazy. "It's very possible"

[mahina]

2. Did I miss something? Seems I did. What are you folks talking about?

How can California be locked out of the next election?

Mahalo for explaining.

Districts 39, 48 and 49 aren't letting Democrats register?

?

I sent Doug Applegate money to beat Issa but I think, don't really remember, he's in district 50.

I hope Issa and Nunes are turfed out in a landslide. I can dream!

[MissB]

3. I think it's top 2 in a wide field

But I don’t really know for sure. I’ve caught snippets along the way.

On edit: meaning the top two candidates could be republicans.

[JI7]

4. yes, if the democratic votes are spread out among many candidates

and most republican votes go to 2 republicans it could result in those 2 republicans ending up on the final ballot.

even if the total votes for all the democrats were far higher than the totals for the republicans.

[mahina]

5. OH! Thank you.

I think we were batting that one around here too.

Interesting.

I wonder how that would go differently... guessing that if there's no primary, there's no chance for the Dems in those districts, or the Republicans in solid blue districts.

Party aside, I wonder what really honors the will of the voters best.

[BigmanPigman]

6. This confuses me too.

District 50 is Issa and 49 is Hunter. I think 49 is the one we have to really worry about. From what I have seen on the local news that area is pretty dug into the whole GOP load of BS.

[Jim Lane]

7. There is no PARTISAN primary

Every candidate -- Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, independent -- goes on the same ballot for one big primary (sometimes nicknamed a "jungle" primary, as a war of each against all). The top two finishers, regardless of party, appear on the general election ballot.

The lockout did happen in a race in Washington state. Three Democrats and two Republicans were all fairly close in the voting. That meant that the Democrats collectively beat the Republicans collectively by about 3 to 2. The way the votes happened to fall out, though, was that the two Republicans were at the top of the tightly bunched field. Thus, in November, the voters had a choice between two Republicans.