Four Key Races To Watch in California’s June Open Primary

California’s delegation to Congress and its state and local offices are set to see more turnover this year than at any point in the last decade thanks to term limits, retirements, and Governor Gavin Newsom’s mid-decade redistricting plan. Though the race to replace Mr. Newsom is grabbing the most attention, several other races will have serious implications for the state’s future. In the 2018 Democratic wave election year, Democrats flipped seven of the state’s 53 congressional seats. Now, in response to Texas’s redistricting effort last summer, California is set to have a 48–4 House delegation split favoring Democrats after voters approved new congressional maps last fall. One of the ugliest races to come about as a result of that redistricting push is not a contested race between a Democrat and a Republican, but rather a primary between two sitting Republican House members — Congressman Ken Calvert and Congresswoman Young Kim. Mr. Calvert and Ms. Kim are now vying to represent California’s 40th district — one of the few red districts left in southern California — after parts of their districts were combined in order to hand Democrats more seats in the region. The result of the primary will almost certainly have nothing to do with the partisan make-up of the House come January. According to an analysis from Inside Elections, the 40th district’s partisan voter index favors the GOP by 17 points, which all but guarantees that the seat will stay in the Republican column this fall. But it is the only race in the nation pitting two House Republicans against each other in an eight-person contest.Mr. Calvert and Ms. Kim have been colleagues for more than five years, with Ms. Kim having flipped a swing district in 2020. Mr. Calvert has represented southern California in the House since 1993. Mr. Calvert’s seniority in the House is a vital part of his pitch to voters. He currently serves as the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that writes the Pentagon’s annual budget — arguably one of the most important roles on Capitol Hill. The chairmanship gives him a great deal of leverage over the direction of federal tax dollars. According to polls, Mr. Calvert and Ms. Kim are locked in a tight, three-way race with a Democrat for the top two spots in next week’s primary. The campaign between the two has gotten especially personal, with Mr. Calvert accusing Ms. Kim of being a “Trump traitor” and a “liberal.” Another ad accuses Ms. Kim of being “good for criminals” because she is not as restrictionist on immigration as some of her colleagues. Ms. Kim, meanwhile, has started taking low blows at Mr. Calvert. In 1993, Mr. Calvert was caught by police in a car with a prostitute. He later admitted that the two had had sex in the car. Ms. Kim is now making an issue of that in her 2026 campaign. “He’s not just swampy — he’s sleazy. Calvert got busted with a prostitute pants down in his car,” an ad from Ms. Kim reads. “No wonder President Trump can’t trust Calvert.”On the Democratic side, some solidly blue districts are looking at high drama. Last year, a state senator, Scott Wiener, announced he would run for Congress to represent San Francisco. The only problem for Mr. Wiener is that he was declaring his candidacy for the seat currently held by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who at the time had not said whether or not she would seek another term. Ms. Pelosi would later announce her retirement, though it’s clear she and her team were not thrilled with Mr. Wiener’s decision to go ahead with a run in the Democratic primary before she had made her own plans public. Ms. Pelosi was already being challenged by wealthy software engineer Saikat Chakrabarti, who once served as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff. Once Ms. Pelosi announced her retirement, a member of San Francisco’s board of supervisors, Connie Chan, announced that she too would be running to succeed the former House speaker. Last week, Ms. Pelosi endorsed Ms. Chan’s campaign, saying she would fight “tirelessly” for the people of San Francisco. The district is one of the bluest in the nation, with Vice President Kamala Harris having won 82 percent of the vote there in 2024, meaning whoever wins the seat in November could likely be the representative for the district for decades. One race that has Democrats more worried is the newly drawn 48th district, which stretches from southeastern San Diego County up to Palm Springs. It is one of the five districts Democrats are seeking to flip through redistricting, though it is not nearly as blue as some others. According to the Cook PVI, the new 48th district only favors Democrats by two points. Currently, the Republican San Diego County supervisor, Jim Desmond, has a significant lead in the primary, with three other candidates — one Republican and two Democrats — fighting for second place in order to make it to the November election. The two Democrats running are Navy officer Ammar Campa-Najjar and San Diego City Councilor Marni von Wilpert. Mr. Campa-Najjar has run for elected office multiple times in the last decade, losing every campaign. He has been criticized for flip-flopping on a number of key issues, including universal healthcare and the Green New Deal, leading some Democrats to worry that he could put the newly drawn 48th district in jeopardy should he move on to the general election after next week’s primary. Beyond federal races this year, other state and local contests have captured the attention of both California voters and national political observers. Former reality television star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades Fires more than a year ago, is running an outsider campaign to unseat Mayor Karen Bass in Los Angeles. Mr. Pratt is running as a Republican, but is vowing to run the city not focused on politics, but on fixing local issues for his neighbors. At his recent debate with Ms. Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, Mr. Pratt scored a number of viral moments by accosting the mayor and the more progressive Ms. Raman for failing to crack down on homeless encampment, open-air drug use, and violence in the city. “They don’t have to live in the mess they created — where you live,” Mr. Pratt said in a recent ad, showing himself walking past a homeless encampment. “This is where I live. They let my home burn down. I know what the consequences of failed leadership are. That’s why I’m running for mayor.”Ms. Bass, Mr. Pratt, and Ms. Raman are all vying for the top two spots in the primary next week, though it appears Ms. Raman — a favorite of progressives in the city — is falling behind. Even before Mr. Pratt’s much-heralded debate performance, he surged into second place behind the incumbent, according to multiple polls fielded ahead of the debate. The most recent survey from Cygnal Political has Ms. Bass leading the field with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Mr. Pratt who takes 22 percent and Ms. Raman who wins 18 percent.

Four Key Races To Watch in California’s June Open Primary

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