Voters in the 2026 midterms delivered a stunning rebuke of Republican governance, as a blue wave swept through the country, flipping GOP strongholds and resulting in Democrats taking control of the U.S. House and Senate
In California, however, while some Republican incumbents in the legislature appear poised to lose their seats, that national wave may have only resulted in some high tides that swept onto the shores of other GOP-favored districts.
“That’s the thing that’s surprising to me: The wave is hitting California, but not quite as hard as it is across the rest of the country,” said Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at USC, who serves as director of the university’s Democracy and Fair Elections Lab.
Though county election officials are still tallying results, three Assembly seats in the Inland Empire held by Republicans appear poised to flip blue as more votes are counted.
Another three in Orange County, two of which have GOP incumbents and another long held by Republicans, remain fairly close as more votes were counted this week.
And in a Senate seat in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the Republican incumbent trails a Democratic challenger.
Overall, 64 of the Assembly’s 80 seats are projected to be filled by Democrats, while 11 will be held by Republicans, according to a composition of the California Legislature from Paul Mitchell, a Democratic consultant who leads Political Data Inc., a firm that tracks voter data and ballot returns. Three of the remaining five lean Democrat and the other two lean Republican.
In the Senate, Democrats comfortably hold 32 seats while Republicans hold five. The three remaining seats lean Republican, according to Mitchell’s projected composition.
Though a pendulum swing in the midterms is common, this year’s national results are on pace with some of the more dramatic shifts in U.S. electoral history, Grose said.
“These are on the scale with the 1970s, the 1930s, the late 1800s kind of midterms. The size, especially of the House swing for the Democrats, I think is really surprising,” Grose said. “Historically, when you do get a big swing, two things are going on: Turnout is higher for the out-party than the in-party, and also people are switching. In California we’re seeing that, and we’re also seeing that nationally.
“A lot of Democrats who normally don’t vote in a midterm, or independents who lean Democrat, they turned out to vote. … And on the flip side, Republicans are not turning out in the midterm at the levels they often do, and definitely not at presidential-year levels,” Grose said.
And when these big waves occur, Grose said, it’s also common for them to track down ballots. Through polling ahead of the election, Grose said it was “pretty obvious” that some of Southern California’s Republican legislative seats could be flipped because of the national environment.
But at the same time, it’s surprising to see “how sturdy” some GOP incumbents are holding up, especially in Orange County, Grose said.
Take the race between Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, and Democrat Chris Duncan in the 36th Senate District race, for example, Grose said.
As of 5:30 p.m. Friday, Duncan, the former mayor of San Clemente, held onto a lead of 4,072 votes, receiving 50.6% of the vote compared to Strickland’s 49.4%, according to the latest preliminary results released by the secretary of state’s office.
“That was a Trump +4 district in 2024. The national environment is Democrats winning by 10 points, 12 points. That would mean, if that shift was the same in his district, (Strickland) should be losing by five, six, seven points,” Grose said.
“To me, part of the story is actually, even though they might lose … the national environment is so much stronger than it looks like in some of the Orange County races,” he said.
“The Republicans are facing that wave, but might be able to hold it off,” Grose said.
Grose sees a similar trend in Orange County’s Assembly District 72, which includes Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Woods and Lake Forest.
As of Friday evening, Republican Gracey Van Der Mark held a slim lead over Democrat Chris Kluwe heading into the weekend after Election Day. Van Der Mark leads by 2,214 votes, receiving 50.6% of votes counted so far to Kluwe’s 49.4%.
“It suggests that the sort of MAGA base of Huntington Beach is really close to getting taken out in the blue wave at the state legislative level, but on the other hand, Republican voters did seem to be more mobilized there than they were in other parts of the state, like the Riverside County districts,” Grose said.
Jon Gould, dean of the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology, said the tight races for the Orange County legislative seats are indicative of just how “purple” the county is. This is shown in how Orange County voters cast their ballots in statewide races, he said: Democratic candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state have each received a little over 53% of votes from Orange County voters as of Friday afternoon, Gould said, for example.
For statewide Democratic candidates to get those totals in Orange County, Gould said, they would need to win over their party voters, plus independent voters “at least two-to-one” and about 20% of Republicans, he said.
“This isn’t necessarily a situation of everyone in Orange County becoming Democrats,” he said. “It is more that independents, and even some Republicans, chose to vote Democratic this time around … When voters went to the polls, they were choosing a ‘D’ or an ‘R ‘; they were not necessarily choosing a particular candidate.”
As for what votes Orange County GOP candidates lost, Gould said, it’s not from their “hardcore partisan” base: It’s from independents and likely from “modestly-attached Republicans.” He pointed to the tight Assembly and Senate races in Huntington Beach, where there is a large contingent of those party-faithfuls, as an indicator.
In the Inland Empire, the blue wave appeared to wash over a trio of Assembly districts.
In Assembly District 36, which includes part of Hemet, Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez, R-Indio, was losing to Democrat and Imperial Mayor Ida Obeso-Martinez, 59.2% to 40.8%, a lead of 14,735 votes, as of Friday evening.
Gonzalez won his seat two years ago in a major upset. As of last month, 41% of the 36th’s registered voters were Democrats compared to 29% for the GOP.
Assemblymember Greg Wallis, R-Rancho Mirage, was first elected in 2022 after winning his seat by just 85 votes — one of the closest legislative elections in California history. But Democrat Leila Namvar has maintained a strong lead against Wallis in the race for Assembly District 47, which includes desert cities along with parts of Redlands, Highland and San Jacinto.
As of Friday evening, Namvar had so far received 55.8% of the vote, a lead of over 15,607, to Wallis’ 44.2%.
Similarly, in the Assembly District 58 race — which includes Jurupa Valley, Grand Terrace and parts of Corona, Eastvale, and Riverside — Democrat Clarissa Cervantes maintained her massive lead over Assemblymember Leticia Castillo, R-Corona.
Cervantes has received 61.3% of the vote to Castillo’s 38.7%, a lead of over 15,567 votes, as of Friday evening
Like Gonzalez, Castillo, also a first-term lawmaker, rode a red wave to an upset over Cervantes in the 58th, where 42% of voters are registered Democrats compared to 27% for the GOP.
“That’s the wave I would have expected, in almost all the down-ballot state legislative races, is something on that scale, because the wave is so big nationally,” Grose said. “At the Assembly and Senate level here, I would have expected maybe more than three pick-ups.
“The wave is having a huge impact on the legislative races, and Democrats are benefiting, but there are resilient Republican legislators in some places that you might expect the wave to take them out who might hold on,” Grose said.
Elsewhere in Orange County and the Inland Empire, these Republican candidates and incumbents are neck and neck with their Democratic counterparts for legislative seats in Sacramento.
Over in Orange County’s Assembly District 70 — which includes Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Garden Grove, Westminster and Fountain Valley — 244 votes separate Assemblymember Tri Ta, R-Westminster, and Democrat Paul Swift.
As of Friday evening, Swift was leading with 50.1% of votes to Ta’s 49.9%. Ta had held a narrow lead in the days after Election Day.
Another one of these competitive races is for Assembly District 74, in which Republican Assemblymember Laurie Davies, R-Laguna Niguel, is holding onto a narrow lead over Democrat Sergio Farias, a San Clemente City Council member. The district spans Orange and San Diego counties and includes Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente.
As of Friday evening, Davies has received 50.6% of votes cast, leading by just 1,659 votes. Farias has so far received 49.4%.