Turnout has been key to Central Valley tossup House races. What experts expect in 2024
Turnout could decide who wins highly competitive 2024 congressional races in California’s Central Valley, where the makeup of the electorate is changing.
California’s 13th and 22nd Congressional Districts are tossups that could decide whether Democrats or Republicans control the House of Representatives in 2025. The elections are rematches of close 2022 races, a year when these districts’ turnout was very low.
In the 13th, freshman Rep. John Duarte, R-Modesto, faces former Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced. In the 22nd, Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, competes with former Assemblyman Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield.
Both districts have more registered Democrats than Republicans and a growing no-party-preference bloc.
The districts would have picked President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump by more than 10 percentage points in 2020 had current legislative maps been in place. Congressional districts were redrawn after the 2020 Census, making 2022 the first election with these maps.
The majority of the voting-age population in each district is Latino and they both have a growing number of voters under 35 — two groups that have historically leaned Democratic in California. They’re also groups that had extremely low turnout here in 2022 when Democrats Gray and Salas lost by 3 percentage points or less.
Presidential general elections tend to draw the highest turnout, noted Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc. and owner of Redistricting Partners. Mitchell and other experts said they expect higher 2024 turnout because of the competitiveness and the presidential election.
If there’s high turnout in these two districts, particularly among young and Latino voters, the numbers suggest Democratic challengers should have an advantage, Mitchell said.
“I think that’s why a lot of people nationally are looking at those two seats as two of the seats that are the most likely to flip this cycle,” he figured.
Shifting demographics
But Democrats might not be able to bet on high turnout to propel their candidates to Congress in these two districts because of changing demographics of the political parties, said Mike Madrid, a GOP strategist and Latino voting trends expert.
Accelerated by the Trump era, college-educated voters are moving more rapidly to Democrats and non-college-educated voters to Republicans. And there has been a rightward shift among Latinos here, experts said.
“What you’re seeing is a significant balancing out between the parties when it used to decidedly advantage the Democrats,” Madrid said of turnout in an interview, describing it as “completely different than what conventional wisdom has ever suggested in anybody’s living memory, certainly in my 30-year career.”
The 13th and 22nd have high populations of non-college-educated voters. A small percentage of Democrats and no-party-preference voters have switched to the GOP since 2022 here, according to an analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California.
“It’s that Latinos and African Americans are the ones switching Democrat to Republican, and there are a lot of Latino voters in the Central Valley,” said Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. “So it’s really about the composition of the population in these districts that’s driving the change.”
There’s also been a surge of no-party preference voters in these two districts. Ideologically, no-party-preference voters tend to match the makeup of their California districts, said McGhee: “In a place like the Central Valley, they’re going to be maybe a little bit redder, on average, historically, than the state generally.”
Conservative Democrats who turn out in the Central Valley have shown a willingness to split their tickets in favor of a Republican congressman. With the exception of the 2018 “anti-Trump” blue wave midterms, Valadao has won elections here despite Democrats taking the top of the ticket.
Voter registration in each district
These are the breakdowns of the congressional districts as of September. As numbers are rounded, they might not add up to 100%.
In California’s 13th Congressional District:
▪ 35% of voters are under age 35
▪ 31% are 35-54
▪ 34% are 55 and older
▪ 54% are Latino
▪ 31% are white
▪ 14% are Asian, Black and or have another racial identity
▪ 41% are Democrats
▪ 30% are Republicans
▪ 22% are no-party preference
▪ 8% are another party
In California’s 22nd Congressional District:
▪ 39% of voters are under age 35
▪ 31% are 35-54
▪ 30% are 55 and older
▪ 64% are Latino
▪ 23% are white
▪ 13% are Asian, Black and or have another racial identity
▪ 41% are Democrats
▪ 27% are Republicans
▪ 23% are no-party preference
▪ 8% are another party
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, among likely voters in the state as of August:
▪ 43% of Democratic likely voters are white, 31% are Latino, 15% are Asian American and 7% are Black
▪ 61% of Republican likely voters are white, 22% are Latino, 12% are Asian American and 1% are Black
▪ 54% of Independent voters are white, 19% are Latino, 18% are Asian American and 4% are Black
Registration shifts
To vote in California’s GOP presidential primary, the voter must be registered as Republican, attracting people who might have wanted to participate, said McGhee. The same rule does not apply to the Democratic primary, which allows voters who are not registered Democrats.
A bump in GOP registration here is largely from Latino men, said Mitchell. He cautioned it’s not an overwhelming change.
Latina women are more likely to turn out and register to vote in higher rates than men, according to a September report by Data for Social Good, a research and consulting organization, and Communities for a New California Education Fund, which works on voter engagement in the Central Valley.
Many of those registering as no-party preference here are young and many are Latino. Historically, this suggests that they would be good pick ups for Democratic campaigns, Mitchell said.
“It isn’t saying, ‘I have no ideology,’” Mitchell said. “It’s just kind of not believing in necessarily all the partisans screaming on CNN or Fox News against each other all the time.”
Many Latino voters register as no-party preference because they lack trust in either party to meet their needs, said Pablo Rodriguez, founding Executive Director of Communities for a New California Education Fund. To raise turnout in November, campaigns need to actively reach out on key issues.
“This is a political expression of not feeling they have a strong political home,” Rodriguez said last month. “While Latinos may support Democratic candidates more often as a whole, they aren’t convinced to vote down party lines. Their votes need to be earned.”
