What do Richard Hill, David Guthrie and Hewitt Fitts Ryan have in common? How about David Secor, Janet Gastil and Darity Wesley?
All are among the 21 Democrats who’ve lost congressional elections in ruby red East County since 1982. (Libertarian Lynn Badler was the lone non-Dem runner-up, back in 1998.)
In fact, the Republican victor in those 22 races won by an average of 31.6 percentage points. (Throw out Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar’s 3.4-point loss to indicted Rep. Duncan D. Hunter in 2018 and the average is 33 points.)
No wonder the authoritative Cook Political Report lists Rep. Darrell Issa’s race in CA48 as noncompetitive.
But Issa — elected to the House a dozen times since 2001 and the latest East County Republican — has drawn three challengers.
Do any of these Democrats stand a chance?
History says no.
That’s also the stance of several political scientists contacted by Times of San Diego.
“Issa won the 2024 race by more than 18 points and Cook Political has it rated as a ‘safe Republican’ seat for 2026 at this point,” said Lawrence Becker, a professor at Cal State Northridge who earned his bachelor’s degree in political science at UC San Diego.
He says 2026 looks like a more favorable environment nationally for House Democrats than 2024, “so it would not be surprising to see a Democratic candidate close that 18-point gap a bit in 2026, particularly if Democrats are able to recruit a strong challenger who is well-funded.”
But closing an 18-point gap is pretty unlikely, he said via email.
“It would require the kind of seismic shift that is exceedingly unlikely, especially in the current hyper-polarized era that we’re in,” Becker writes.
Bigger GOP targets
Even if things go very wrong for Republicans nationally in 2026, Democrats will be much more focused on other GOP incumbents in California, he said, citing Reps. David Valadao, Ken Calvert, Young Kim and Kevin Kiley.
Democrats, he says, “will have their hands full trying to defeat those incumbents before they try to expand the map further by trying to defeat a Republican like Issa who is in a much more red district,” with 41% of voters registered as Republicans and 29% as Democrats.
Even a strong, well-funded challenger isn’t likely to be enough to make CA48 a race, he said.
“If that district becomes competitive, we’re talking about either some major scandal related to Issa or some national, seismic shift that seems unlikely from where we are standing right now.”
Longtime San Diego political observer Carl Luna, a University of San Diego professor, likens a GOP loss here to science fiction.
“Normally one would expect an alien invasion bodysnatching the Republicans of the district and replacing them with Democrats to be the only condition under which Democrats win in the 48th,” Luna says. “But these are unusual times if the Trump policies crash the economy under the weight of tariffs, inflation, stock market crashes.”
In an era of monetary instability, Luna says, “you could see a retaliatory blue wave sweeping away a lot of Republicans.”
But it would take a Dem landslide to remove Issa, he says.
“Six months ago,” Luna says, “I would’ve given the Democrats zero chance in the district. Now maybe 10% or 20%. By 2026?”
(Issa’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment on his current challengers — or whether he’d debate the runoff winner in fall 2026.)
I asked Luna: Should Democratic candidates make this election a referendum on Donald Trump or focus on the needs of CA48?
Making Issa a lapdog
“Democrats’ only chance to win the 48th is to make it all about Donald Trump and make Issa look like a lapdog to a deranged would-be king president,” he replied.
Democrats, he says, have to hold Issa accountable for not standing up to any of Trump’s failed economic policies “from proposed massive budget cuts to basic services to the gutting of government under the DOGE to potentially producing what could be by 2026 the worst economy in the past 90 years.”
Also skeptical of a GOP defeat in CA48 is Daniel Schnur, who teaches at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine.
“Nothing in politics is impossible,” he told me, “but a Democrat winning this seat would require a national landslide of historic proportions.”
But if Trump’s tariffs were to have the type of devastating economic impact that his critics are predicting, GOP House candidates could suffer huge losses, said Schnur, who was Sen. John McCain’s communications chief in the Arizonan’s 2000 presidential run (and Gov. Pete Wilson’s chief media spokesman).
“That type of political landscape could provide a Democratic candidate the opportunity to run on a strong anti-Trump message,” he said. “But that would require surfing a national wave rather than trying to localize the race in a district that leans so far to the right.”
Dems need strong tide
UC Irvine’s Matthew Beckmann notes that midterm elections like 2026 tend to go against newly elected presidents.
“The 2024 tide favored Trump and Republicans, so history suggests the 2026 tide will pull toward the Democrats. But to win a R+7 district, the Democrat will need to [ride] a rather strong tide — which probably means an economic recession that lasts well into 2026.”
Beckmann, who directs UC Irvine’s Capital Internship Program in Washington, says political science research shows congressional races are subject to forces bigger than the particulars of the campaign or candidates, “though the latter matter at the margins.”
“However, it is far too early to know who or how one might best push those margins,” he wrote.
“President Trump and congressional Republicans have embarked on an agenda that polls poorly, and economists say could spark a recession,” Beckmann says. “In many ways, the Democratic challenger’s campaign will be defined by Rep. Issa’s choices in the months ahead.”
Predictions for 2026
I asked each professor to hazard a percentage guess on the outcome of a November 2026 runoff between Issa and the top Democrat.
Becker and Schnur wouldn’t bite.
UC Irvine’s Beckmann calls Issa the favorite and “I’d guess he wins by 3-5 points, but that is really just a guess.”
USD’s Luna gives Dems possibly better odds.
“If the economy has tanked along with Trump‘s approval ratings, the Democrats could have a 50-50 chance,” he wrote.
But Luna has concerns.
“All of this is predicated upon their actually being fair and free elections in 2026,” he said. “As a number of political scientists and historians pointed out, our current president has definite authoritarian tendencies.”
Luna says Trump’s suggested revisions to the Voting Rights Act and executive orders on voting registration “are probably just the opening salvo of a full-throated assault on voting rights and fair elections.”
He added that if Trump is significantly unpopular in 2026, he might seek extraconstitutional remedies to keep his majorities in the House and Senate.
“Any other time under any other president this would just be foolish worry,” Luna said. “Today it could be next year’s headlines.”
Part 2 of 2.
Also see: Who can beat Rep. Darrell Issa in CA-48? Three Democratic rivals step up to plate
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