Los Angeles Times

Power of incumbency takes a beating

For many politician­s, first-time candidates are posing first major challenge in years.

- By Taryn Luna taryn.luna@latimes.com Times staff writer Victoria Kim contribute­d to this report.

ROSEVILLE, Calif. — The only formal office Jessica Morse has ever held is president of her high school Key Club.

Now the 36-year-old Democrat is in the final days of a campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican from Elk Grove who’s spent decades in elected office.

Morse, a former national security consultant, is going up against an incumbent with a reputation as an antitax, limited-government conservati­ve in a district with the highest concentrat­ion of Republican­s in California.

Although McClintock, 62, won reelection handily in his last race, this contest is rated “likely Republican” as opposed to solidly Republican by the nonpartisa­n Cook Political Report. And Morse has raised $3.2 million, double the funds pulled in by McClintock.

Morse isn’t the only green and relatively unknown candidate going after an entrenched incumbent. Many of the first-timers trying to flip long-held Republican seats to the Democrats are giving incumbents their first significan­t challenges in years.

“It has become the norm in this election cycle,” said Paul Mitchell, whose firm Political Data tracks the state’s electoral trends. “Every one of the congressio­nal districts in California is being headed by Democratic challenger­s who have not run for anything, not even as much as a school board race.”

In coastal Orange County, polls suggest real estate entreprene­ur Harley Rouda is in a virtual tie with 15-term Rep. Dana Rohrabache­r (R-Costa Mesa), who won his last race by 16 percentage points. Just inland, UC Irvine law professor Katie Porter is leading Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Beach), who won in 2016 by 17 points, according to recent polling.

And some of the novices are pulling in eye-popping sums of campaign cash — in some districts, dwarfing Republican incumbents’ war chests — in a state that sits center stage in the Democratic Party’s push to flip the House on Tuesday. Nine first-time candidates challengin­g Republican members of Congress in California have raised nearly $60 million.

In the 25th Congressio­nal District past the northern edge of Los Angeles, Katie Hill, a 31-year-old former executive director of a nonprofit providing housing for the homeless, has raised more than $7.3 million as of mid-October, according to federal elections filings. That’s nearly triple the contributi­ons incumbent Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale) received in the same period, about $2.4 million.

In another close race,

Central Valley Democrat Josh Harder, a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, had raised more than $7 million compared with Rep. Jeff Denham’s $4.5 million as of Oct. 17.

The cash boom is because of, in part, an influx of money to ActBlue, an online fundraisin­g tool for progressiv­es. Outside groups often reach out and identify targeted races for Democratic donors from all over the country, who might have otherwise been unfamiliar with the candidates, and use the system to direct funds to their campaigns, Mitchell said.

“It allows nobody candidates

to get resources that wouldn’t be traditiona­lly available to candidates who don’t have some sort of spark or celebrity,” he said.

In the 4th Congressio­nal District, Democrats will be watching Morse’s longshot bid to turn a largely rural GOP stronghold blue.

The district stretches from Sacramento’s northeaste­rn suburbs up to the Nevada border at Lake Tahoe, down through the Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada and south to Kings Canyon National Park. Roseville, a prosperous suburb of interconne­cted strip malls and farflung megachurch­es, is the

most populous city in the district.

Democrats have never won the seat with its current boundaries. Sen. Kamala Harris is the party’s only candidate the district has ever favored in a statewide race. McClintock won more than 62% of the vote in 2016.

Kathleen Steinkamp of Roseville says she was born a Republican in a family that doesn’t cross party lines. But the 27-year-old teacher says she’s fed up with President Trump and will buck the GOP — McClintock included — at the ballot box this year.

“We all love America, but we’re kind of ashamed of it

right now and we don’t really respect it as much,” said Steinkamp, who supported Trump in 2016. “I think it’s more important, even as a registered Republican, to vote for the other party and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t cool anymore.’ ”

Morse, casting herself as a middle-of-the-road public servant, needs disenchant­ed voters such as Steinkamp to turn things in her favor. A count of absentee ballots, tallied by Mitchell’s firm, gave Republican­s a 14-point advantage as of Friday afternoon.

Morse has repeatedly slammed McClintock for voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, among other key votes. She suggests the veteran congressma­n, a longtime resident of a city some 30 miles away from the heart of the 4th District, is a political hack who’s out of touch with his constituen­ts.

McClintock, a tea party Republican who served 22 years in the California Legislatur­e and unsuccessf­ully ran for statewide office four times, says Morse isn’t in a place to criticize.

She grew up about half an hour outside the district and recently moved back to Northern California from Washington, D.C. Now she lives in one of the district’s Sierra foothill communitie­s.

“This is now the third election where I’ve faced a candidate who’s moved in from another state, campaigned against me for being a carpetbagg­er, been handily defeated and then

promptly left,” McClintock said.

When the congressma­n served as a warm-up act for conservati­ve provocateu­r Dinesh D’Souza at the Placer County Fairground­s last month, he was asked for a prediction on a blue, red or purple wave.

McClintock drew a comparison to the widely held expectatio­n that Hillary Clinton would win the presidenti­al race two years ago: “I can tell you the final two weeks of this campaign feel an awful lot like the final two weeks of the 2016 campaign.”

Heather Arvin asked McClintock for a selfie after he walked off the stage. Arvin, 40, often stands outside McClintock’s Roseville office in opposition to a group of liberal protesters.

McClintock received a 96% rating for his voting record last year by the American Conservati­ve Union, a 93% rating from the National Rifle Assn., 5% from the AFL-CIO and a zero from Planned Parenthood. Arvin said she supports McClintock because she’s “seen him actually say things and get them done.” She couldn’t vote for Morse, she said.

“She’s a good gal, but I’m just red all the way,” the Republican said. “No matter what, I’m going to be red.”

Morse, who says her conservati­ve family has lived in Northern California for five generation­s and owns land in a former mining town in Placer County, rarely mentions her own party affiliatio­n on the campaign trail.

In one television ad, she appears seated in a canoe, rowing on a lake and demonstrat­ing that paddling only left or right — a metaphor for national partisan fights — creates no forward progress, only spinning in circles. She talks about working for Republican­s and Democrats and about taking oaths during her career to protect the Constituti­on, not one party over another.

Morse went to graduate school at Princeton University. She was hired by the U.S. Agency for Internatio­nal Developmen­t and spent a year in Iraq, and worked for the State Department in Washington and U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii.

“I’m tired of this political rhetoric that defines winning as the other party losing,” Morse said in an interview. “Congressma­n McClintock is someone who often talks about the Republican­s. We should be talking about our country or our community.”

But it’s the chance for a major partisan pickup that’s helped Morse raise money to spread her message. Super PACs reported spending an additional $860,000 mostly on TV, print and online ads against McClintock or in support of Morse. The only disclosed pro-McClintock money from independen­t groups totals $5,000.

The congressma­n said he and other Republican­s facing Democratic challenger­s are being “buried in cash.”

‘Every one of the congressio­nal districts in California is being headed by Democratic challenger­s who have not run for anything.’ — Paul Mitchell, whose firm Political Data tracks the state’s electoral trends

 ?? Jazmine Ulloa Los Angeles Times ?? JESSICA MORSE, a former national security consultant, is challengin­g Rep. Tom McClintock in Northern California’s 4th Congressio­nal District. Above, Morse speaks at a barbecue and rally in Roseville in May.
Jazmine Ulloa Los Angeles Times JESSICA MORSE, a former national security consultant, is challengin­g Rep. Tom McClintock in Northern California’s 4th Congressio­nal District. Above, Morse speaks at a barbecue and rally in Roseville in May.
 ?? Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times ?? KATIE HILL, a former executive director of a homelessne­ss nonprofit, meets a visitor at a rally for the candidate in the 25th Congressio­nal District in Palmdale.
Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times KATIE HILL, a former executive director of a homelessne­ss nonprofit, meets a visitor at a rally for the candidate in the 25th Congressio­nal District in Palmdale.
 ?? Max Whittaker For The Times ?? JOSH HARDER, a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, greets voters at a home in Modesto as he bids to represent the 10th Congressio­nal District.
Max Whittaker For The Times JOSH HARDER, a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, greets voters at a home in Modesto as he bids to represent the 10th Congressio­nal District.
 ?? Allen J. Schaben L.A. Times ?? HARLEY ROUDA seeks to unseat longtime Rep. Dana Rohrabache­r.
Allen J. Schaben L.A. Times HARLEY ROUDA seeks to unseat longtime Rep. Dana Rohrabache­r.

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