Loading ...Donald Trump Supporter Darrell Issa Faces Tough Re-Election Fight in California
Rep. Darrell Issa, a Donald Trump supporter and one of PresidentBarack Obama’s staunchest congressional critics, is facing his stiffest re-election challenge as national Democrats target one of California’s last Republican bastions: Orange County.
The Cook Political Report this month declared the race a “toss up” in Mr. Issa’s district, which spans southern Orange County and portions of northern San Diego, including Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton—a startling development for the 62-year-old who has won election eight times.
His Democratic rival, Doug Applegate, 62, is a former Marine colonel, an Iraq war veteran and a military lawyer now in private practice. He retired from service in 2006 after 32 years, and is running on a platform of job creation, opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and improving health-care and job opportunities for veterans. He described his opponent as a “poster boy for Washington dysfunction [who] always puts his party ahead of our country.”
Mr. Issa is emphasizing his legislative record, pointing to a report by researchers at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University that rated him the second-most effective Republican lawmaker in Congress. He is the wealthiest member of Congress, having run a vehicle antitheft device company before he was elected to Congress in 2000.
Democrats would need to win a net of 30 seats to recapture the House majority for the first time since 2010. Mr. Trump’s slide in the polls has made Democrats more confident they can winnow the House GOP majority, even if regaining control of the chamber remains something of a long shot.
“This district is definitely going to become more of a swing seat,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., a California research firm that provides data to both parties. “If not in this year, in subsequent years, Darrell Issa is going to start feeling pressure from millennials registering, and other changing demographics.”
From his perch as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee from 2011 to 2015, Mr. Issa launched a series of investigations into the Obama administration. They included probes about the deadly attack in 2012 against U.S. personnel in Benghazi, Libya, the failed “Fast and Furious” arms sting by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Internal Revenue Service’s treatment of nonprofits aligned with conservative causes.
Mr. Obama, one of Mrs. Clinton’s top surrogates, made clear Mr. Issa’s seat is a target. Speaking Sunday at a La Jolla, Calif., fundraiser for congressional Democrats, the president mocked Mr. Issa for featuring him in a recent mail advertisement that said he was “very pleased” the president signed legislation he co-sponsored.
“This is now a guy who because poll numbers are bad has sent out brochures with my picture on it, touting his cooperation on issues with me,” Mr. Obama said. “That is shameless.”
“I’m disappointed but not surprised that the president, in a political speech, continues to deny accountability for the serious scandals that happened under his watch where Americans died overseas and veterans have died here at home,” Mr. Issa said in response to the president’s comments.
Democrats say Mr. Issa wasn’t an original co-sponsor of the bill and had little to do with getting the law passed. A spokesman for Mr. Issa said he advocated for the bill by writing an editorial, and made it a “top priority.”
In a statement to the Journal, the bill’s author, Rep. Mimi Walters, a Republican, praised Mr. Issa’s leadership on the matter.
Some Democrats believe Hillary Clinton could win Orange County, which would make her the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.
If that happens, “it would mean that the Republicans have lost the last stronghold in California,” said Henry Vandermeir, chair of the Orange County Democratic Party. “That will start making this county a lot more progressive.”
The Orange County border has long been dubbed “the Orange Curtain”—a demarcation of conservatism and wealth from traditionally more diverse, liberal Los Angeles. Orange County, thebirthplace of former President Richard Nixon , with a large population of military veterans, has voted Republican for decades.
But demographic changes have created an opening for Democrats. Latino registration this year ticked up a point to 13% of voters, while millennial registration rose four points to 26% since the 2012 election. About 46% of new registrants this year have been millennials, according to Political Data.
In California’s June 7th primary, where candidates of all parties face-off, Mr. Applegate won 45.5% of the vote compared with 50.8% by Mr. Issa.
The veteran population still figures prominently in the county and the congressional district, and Democrats are going out of their way to feature their candidate’s military experience.
Still, Mr. Issa enjoys an eight-point advantage in the number of registered Republican voters in the district over Democrats, according to state data.
Democrats have sought to make Mr. Issa’s continued support of Mr. Trump an issue, gambling that higher-educated, wealthier Republicans will also be turned off by the GOP nominee.
“Issa has two people to blame for his predicament: Donald Trump and himself,” said David Wasserman, an analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “It’s a Republican-leaning seat, but the Republicans are wealthy and well-educated, and they don’t like Trump.”
Educational attainment is high in the 49th District, with 43.5% having a bachelor’s degree or more, compared with a national figure of about 33%. Mr. Trump has struggled to win highly educated voters.
The House Majority PAC, a super PAC backing Democratic candidates for Congress, said last week it had begun airing an ad supporting Mr. Applegate, an airtime purchase worth about $660,000. That followed about $2.1 million worth of airtime purchased by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm for Democrats in Congress.
Mr. Issa’s campaign has so far spent $2.3 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.