Democrats flip California's 27th District
California has offered a rare ray of sunshine for Democrats in this election, as ABC News reports that Democrat George Whitesides is projected to defeat Republican Rep. Mike Garcia in the state's 27th District, handing Democrats a GOP-held House seat in the northern Los Angeles suburbs. With 88% of the expected vote reporting, Whitesides leads Garcia 51.2% to 48.8%.
Garcia is the fourth House Republican incumbent projected to lose in the 2024 election, but the first outside of New York, which is home to the other three who've gone down. To be clear, Garcia was always in a tough spot: He's routinely had to defend a district that leaned slightly toward Democrats at the presidential level, but he managed to win three times — first in a 2019 special election to pick up the seat from the Democrats, then reelection in 2020 and again in 2022 to retain it for the GOP. But Democrats finally were able to flip his seat back.