The latest update of Roll Call’s

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, is rated as a toss-up to win a 10th term. His 49th District covers north and northwest San Diego County and south Orange County. Last election, Issa defeated lawyer and retired Marine Col. Doug Applegate by 1,621 votes – the smallest margin of victory of any House race in 2016.

Applegate is running again and is joined by at least three fellow Democrats: San Juan Capistrano environmental lawyer Mike Levin, Rancho Santa Fe businessman Paul Kerr and Del Mar native Sara Jacobs, a former official in the Obama State Department and the granddaughter of Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs. Levin has a solid lead in fundraising, according to the most recent reports.

Issa has sought to distance himself from Trump and to present himself as more of a moderate, but his Vista office has been the target of dozens of protests over the past year.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, is rated as being in a “tilt GOP” race – defined by Roll Call as an essentially even race in which Rohrabacher may have a very small edge to win his 16th term in the House. Rohrabacher’s 48th District covers most of coastal Orange County and some inland communities.

Rohrabacher won 58 percent to 42 percent in 2016 over Democrat Suzanne Savary, a retired USC professor and business owner. But he’s since had a rough year in the national media over his unusual enthusiasm for Russia and friendships with Russian officials. A Nov. 21 New York Times story noted that “the Kremlin likes him so much it gave him a code name.”

Several Democrats are expected to challenge Rohrabacher in 2018. The one who appears to have generated the most excitement among national party officials is Hans Keirstead, a Laguna Beach resident who is a stem cell pioneer and entrepreneur. But Keirstead trails Laguna Beach businessman Harley Rouda in fundraising, according to the most recent reports.

Multiple Democrats line up to challenge each incumbent

Three other California House GOP incumbents are rated as having 2018 “lean” in their direction – meaning that while a very close race is likely, they appear to have a slight advantage.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, is seeking a 14th term. His 39th District is centered in central northeast Orange County, with some communities in south Los Angeles County and a sliver of San Bernardino County. In 2016, he won by 14 percent over Democrat Brett Murdock, a former Brea mayor.

He’s also likely to face several Democratic challengers. The list includes former Obama administration official Sam Jammal, philanthropist Gil Cisneros, pediatrician Mai Khan and Villa Park health insurance executive Andy Thorburn, who has a huge lead in fundraising because he loaned his campaign $2 million.

Rep. Steve Knight, R-Palmdale, is seeking a third term. His 25th District covers northern Los Angeles County and a chunk of Ventura County. In 2016, he won by 6 percent over Democratic attorney Bryan Caforio, who is running again. There are several other Democrats running, but it is Caforio and anti-homelessness activist Katie Hill who have gotten the most financial support. Caforio raised more funds than Knight over a recent three-month stretch, and Hill raised nearly as much.

Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, is seeking his fifth term. In 2016, he won his seat in the 10th District in the northern San Joaquin Valley by 2.4 percent over farmer Michael Eggman. At least eight Democrats, including former House candidate TJ Cox, are running against Denham. Josh Harder, a venture capitalist, has a huge early lead in fundraising, with Cox a distant second.

Denham has already been targeted with harsh TV ads paid for by a super PAC linking him to bankers associated with the Great Recession, which hit the Central Valley particularly hard.

The shifts and splits that have long beleaguered the California Republican Party have culminated in historic unpopularity this election year, presenting officials with an open question as to how the party can best retool in the wake of Donald Trump’s run for the White House.

Despite a dogged performance two years ago that held the line against further losses, state Republicans did not anticipate the rise of a candidate that would galvanize their smaller and increasingly populist base. “Of the state’s likely voters, 72 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the GOP,” John Myers noted at the Los Angeles Times, citing a new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California. “That’s eight points higher than two years ago, 14 points worse than four years ago and a massive 21 points above the party’s unfavorable rating six years ago. And then there’s this: 50 percent of registered Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of their party.”

Souring mood

Although Trump has openly declared political war on Republicans he sees as unsupportive, Californian dissatisfaction with the GOP has not helped his candidacy. In a joint poll by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the Bill Lane Center for the American West, respondents suggested the Trump who once encouraged buzz around a bid for California votes has been eclipsed by public opinion. “You have to go all the way back to Alf Landon in 1936 to find a Republican presidential nominee doing as badly as Donald Trump is in California. Even Landon got 31.7 percent of the vote, while Trump is polling at 30 percent, according to the poll of 1,250 likely voters,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The paltry percentage implied a so-called down-ballot effect “on three vulnerable House GOP incumbents: Darrell Issa in northern San Diego County, Steve Knight in northeastern Los Angeles County and Jeff Denham in the Central Valley’s Stanislaus County,” the paper added. 

October twist

But down-ballot Democrats have not been immune to the twists and turns of fortune in the election’s closing days. Analysts have tended to agree that although Hillary Clinton probably won’t be hurt by late developments in the FBI’s investigation of emails surrounding her practices and associates, the ongoing ordeal might pose bad news for vulnerable party-mates in competitive legislative races. “Democrats say they haven’t seen slippage yet and they hope that the email story won’t move the needle in a half-dozen or so Senate races that are either tied or within the polling margin of error,” according to NBC Los Angeles, but Republican moneymen, the network noted, have sought to capitalize on the possibility. 

Meanwhile, in a move designed to aid candidates like Issa, California veterans of Ted Cruz’s campaign have trained their organizational guns on a last-minute push. “Ron Nehring, the former state GOP chairman who was a top Cruz booster, said the focus will be on turning out Republican voters and recruiting volunteers to work on a list of hotly contested congressional and legislative races selected by the California Republican Party,” according to the Times.

An uneven wave

Nevertheless, in some parts of California, Republicans have not faced a down-ballot problem for the reason that no Republicans exist down ballot. “When 818,000 voters in Los Angeles County fill out their ballots this election, they will find themselves in strange political territory: The only Republican names they’ll see will be presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence,” as the Times reported. “In this GOP ‘dead zone’ — spanning parts of five congressional districts, five state Assembly districts and one state Senate district — not a single Republican candidate made it on to the November ballot.”

Despite their dominance, California Democrats may still not succeed in seizing a supermajority in the state Legislature on Election Day. “While Democrats would have to run the table in several competitive districts to gain a supermajority in the state Senate, an unlikely outcome even in an advantageous election year, their prospects in the state Assembly run higher,” Politico observed. “In the lower house, Democrats need to pick up only two seats, and early turnout in targeted districts is moving in their favor.”

Two months ago, Republican operatives feared that presidential nominee Donald Trump would destroy their chances to

Now things look much brighter for the party after a rough stretch for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The Senate appears less at risk because the fact that Trump is the GOP nominee doesn’t seem to be held against GOP incumbents. Gerrymandering appears to have left the House Republican majority safe, perhaps until 2022, after the next census.

But in California, at least, the assumption remains the Trump will drag down GOP candidates in congressional races. That’s why the state Democratic Party is seeking in seven swing districts to target Republicans who are “running on the Trump ticket,” according to a party statement last week as it launched the WrongForCA.com website and related social media efforts.

Four of the Republicans are incumbents: Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, Darrell Issa, R-Vista, Steve Knight, R-Lancaster, and David Valadao, R-Hanford.

The other three are businessman Justin Fareed, seeking the seat of retiring Democratic Rep. Lois Capps in the Santa Barbara area; businesswoman Denise Gitsham, who’s going against Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, and Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, who is targeting Rep. Ami Bera, D-Elk Grove

Michael Soller, communications director for the California Democratic Party, likened Trump’s candidacy to a “sick joke.”

The best hope of sinking a GOP incumbent may be in Issa’s district, which straddles north San Diego County and south Orange County and appears to be moving leftward from its traditional Republicanism. Issa only got 51 percent of the vote in the June primary and has a higher-profile opponent than in past elections, former Marine Lt. Col. Doug Applegate. Running against a poorly funded, little-known Democrat in November 2014, Issa took 60 percent of the vote. The former chairman of the House oversight committee has endorsed Trump, while also making clear his lack of enthusiasm for the New York billionaire.

In November 2014, Denham won with 56 percent of the vote. Knight won with 53 percent and Valadao with 58 percent.

GOP could take first CA Democratic House seat since 1998

Of the other three races, the most surprising is the battle for the seat of the retiring Capps. The Cook Political Report moved the race between Fareed and Santa Barbara County Supervisor Salud Carbajal from “solid Democrat” to “leaning Democrat” last week after Carbajal’s campaign released a seemingly credible Tarrance Group poll showing Fareed up 46 percent to 43 percent.

But as the Cook analysis noted, California Republicans have not won a congressional district represented by a Democrat since 1998. That was when then-Assemblyman Steven T. Kuykendall, R-Rancho Palos Verdes, defeated Janice Hahn of the dynastic Los Angeles political family for a seat that had previously been held by Jane Harman, who ran for governor in 1998. Harman defeated Kuykendall in 2000, making him the only House incumbent to lose that year.

Hanh succeeded Harman in 2011.