OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democratic Rep. Katie Porter barely hung on and defeated her Republican challenger Scott Baugh in California’s 47th Congressional District election.
Porter, who ran for her third term in the House and sits on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, barely won her race despite having a massive campaign war chest. The Democrat ranked in the top five among congressional fundraisers.
“Prior to being elected to Congress in 2018, she taught bankruptcy law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and served as a consumer and bankruptcy attorney for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the World Bank, the Federal Judicial Center, and the Uniform Law Commission. She also clerked for Judge Richard S. Arnold of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals,” Business Insider reported.
“According to OpenSecrets, Porter raised $22.7 million, spent $24.1 million, and had about $8.9 million on hand, as of October 19. Her opponent, Baugh, raised $2.7 million, spent nearly $2.6 million, and had $139,000 cash on hand, as of October 19. As of late October, several dozen super PACs, national party committees, politically active nonprofits, and other non-candidate groups together spent about $8.2 million to advocate for or against candidates in this race, including during the race’s primary phase. Nearly all of this outside money was spent to boost Baugh, with Republican super PACs Congressional Leadership Fund and Club for Growth Action leading all others,” the report added.
“Porter was elected to the House in 2018, flipping the seat held by former Republican Rep. Mimi Walters to become the first Democrat in history to flip the 45th Congressional District, a longtime Republican stronghold. In 2020, she retained her seat against Republican Greg Raths. She is a strong supporter of abortion rights and helped pass the Women’s Health Protection Act in the House, which would codify Roe v. Wade abortion protections if enacted,” the Insider report added.
“Baugh, Porter’s challenger, is an attorney who owns the business law firm, Scott Baugh & Associates. Prior to running for Congress, Baugh represented Orange County in the California Assembly, served as its Republican leader, and chaired the Orange County Republican Party for 11 years,” the report continued.
Thank you, Orange County! pic.twitter.com/sPImaLRhBi
— Katie Porter (@katieporteroc) November 17, 2022
Democrat House hero California’s Katie Porter, and her whiteboard, wins re-election. pic.twitter.com/wvpROGZybI
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) November 17, 2022
Republicans have won control of the U.S. House of Representatives. In addition, Republicans also won more votes nationwide, edging Democrats by around three or four percentage points.
“If they do ultimately win by around three or four points, it would mean Republicans improved on their margin from the 2020 election by around six or seven points, but they were only able to add about 2 percent of seats, as the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman notes,” the Washington Post reported.
“This has understandably led to some griping and head-scratching among Republicans who wonder how they’re struggling to win the House despite that swing. But it’s worth putting in context. The first thing to note is that we have incomplete results. The Cook Political Report’s national popular vote tracker currently shows Republicans winning 51.5 percent of House votes to the Democrats’ 47 percent — a gap of 4.5 points. It’s safe to assume Republicans will win the popular vote by a few points, but that margin will continue to narrow as we get more results from blue-leaning states out west, especially California,” the outlet added.
Despite Republicans winning the popular vote nationwide, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the GOP underperformed in many areas. He also said there should be a postmortem-type review of where the GOP could improve and what it got right in the midterm election.
“I look at this and there’s so many questions – in 2014 when we won, Reince Priebus who was the Republican National Committee chairman, asked me to develop a review – even though we had won – to try to figure it out. And I think that Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the RNC, ought to set up a similar review committee,” he said.
“There’s so many questions that we need to get answered,” Gingrich added. “We need to examine that. Apparently, some incumbents lost who shouldn’t have. We should examine that. No incumbent lost in 2020 with Kevin McCarthy’s leadership and no Republican lost in 1994 when we took the House.”
“We had five or 6 million more votes and we don’t pick up a whole bunch of seats. We need to analyze that. I mean, there’s something going on out there that we don’t understand,” he said. “But, I can’t wait for the moment where Pelosi has to hand… Kevin McCarthy the gavel and the degree to which in committees and investigations and scheduling things, all of a sudden you’re in a totally different House.”
“And remember, the biggest change in Washington will be when Nancy Pelosi hands that gavel over to Kevin McCarthy. You go from a radical liberal to a solid conservative. That is the biggest single change,” Gingrich said, adding that President Joe Biden’s celebratory press conference on Wednesday showed the president “has no idea what’s going on” and is likely to continue his far-left governing position.
