CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD: BLUE EDITION



The primary election for the 49th congressional district is coming right up in June. Let's talk about how things are shaping up for Team Blue.

Doug Applegate came within 2,000 votes of beating Darrell Issa in 2016. So, of course the logical thing for the Democrats to do would be to double down on Doug in 2018, right?

Nope. There are five announced Dem candidates for the race in the 49th. Three of them have lots of money. All of them seem to be working hard to make sure that no Democrat is on the ballot in November. What we have here is a classic Democratic circular firing squad!

Mike Levin is the main challenger to Doug Applegate; Levin  announced a while back and is backed by the Democratic Party machine. He's very well connected because he raised boatloads of money for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

A Dem party insider justified the decision to bet on Levin instead of Applegate like this: "Those votes in 2016 were against Issa, not for Applegate". Or something to that effect. So, in other words, we can run our guy and it will be fine.

Now that Levin has been at it for several months, we see this strategic masterstroke paying off brilliantly in two relatively recent polls, one from SurveyUSA and one from FM3 (paid for by the Flip the 49th PAC).

Well, OK, the masterstroke is not paying off, actually. Turns out a bunch of people actually did vote for Doug Applegate in 2016 after all. Applegate is well ahead of Levin in both polls (and remains the front-runner overall). But Applegate's lead is not what it could be, in part because Levin has been pounding away at Applegate for months. Way to beat up your front runner, Democratic Party. Your big donors are pouring money into a systematic campaign to weaken the candidate with the best shot at winning the district.

So, you could argue that this is what came before the other candidates announced:


With all that said, Applegate has been slow off the mark this year. His fundraising has been anemic. His surrogates only recently began showing life on social media after passively getting hammered for months by Team Levin. And he isn't doing much in the way of paid digital, mailings, or TV. He needs to get out there. And he needs money to do that.

What about the other candidates? Let's start with two very rich people who have decided that money can buy them a nice district in Southern California. Well, we have one very, very, very rich person and a merely very rich person.

In the 1% of the 1% of the 1% category is Sara Jacobs, grand-daughter of Irwin Jacobs, the fellow who founded Qualcomm. Irwin has a net worth well over $1 billion. Yes, with a "B". Anyway, 29 year old Sara has recently moved into the 49th district for the purpose of spending a whole bunch of money to win the seat. She immediately gave her campaign a cool million bucks.

She's now busy throwing all that money into a rather robust media campaign (which means lots of TV ads). She's put a dent into both Applegate and Levin. Her numbers are almost as good as Levin's numbers, and he had a ridiculous head start and gigantic institutional support. I'll bet you a kibble that Levin is not at all happy with Sara!

Sara is truly a spoiler, a wrecking ball of total destruction for Democratic hopes in the 49th. She doesn't have much of a shot at winning a top slot in June but she can wreak utter havoc on the two Democratic front-runners. With the ill-considered brawl between Applegate and Levin early on in the campaign season (egged on by the party establishment), both front-runners are now weak enough that Sara can take support away from them and unintentionally ensure that no Democrat at all is getting on the ballot in November. She's very, very dangerous (if you're a Democrat). 

Our merely very rich person is Paul Kerr, who has made between $30 million and $40 million in real estate. Kerr seems like a good guy and he came on his fortune honestly, working hard to go from nothin' to somethin' over a long career. But let's be honest. Kerr is not a great politician. He polls in the low single digits. He's not getting traction. He has no prayer of doing anything except taking some votes away from a credible front runner.

The last Dem entrant is Christina Prejean, a military veteran and good person who speaks very earnestly and has no shot at all.

Add it all up and the Dems have labored mightily (and spent a whole bunch of money) to ingeniously set themselves to be shut out of the November general election. That's quite a feat in a swing district where the incumbent just bowed out and Trump has a significant negative approval rating. In California. In a blue wave year. 

If the Dem candidates all keep beating the crap out of each other between now and June, they are likely to split the Dem and Dem-leaning votes between them and give the two top slots to Republicans. 

It started with Applegate and Levin slugging it out for months. Backing Levin was a miscalculation by the Dem party insiders and the donor establishment. But now Sara Jacobs is the true harbinger of doom for Team Blue. 

If you lean blue and you're not gloomy enough yet, know that even Kerr and Prejean can do some serious damage with a couple of points in the primary if they don't bow out. 

With all the friendly fire between Dems leading up to the primary, it's not hard to see how two Republicans can coast to the general. The FM3 poll confirmed that if all the Dems stay in and one Republican bows out, they'll nail it.

The circular firing squad will have done its job.

Some of these Dem candidates need to get the hell out of the race.

And as long as this cat is dispensing free advice, might I suggest that a few big Dem donors give Doug Applegate some money. The old soldier is holding up pretty well with no resources. Back him for reals and the Dems might have a chance in June instead of the current mutual suicide pact!