President Trump Congratulates John Cox, GOP Primary Winners in Calif.

Payne did, however, lament that party leadership did not adequately support female candidates across Orange County.

California has some of the highest gas prices in the nation, and the tax, which went in to effect past year, is a rare issue in California that seems to bring Democrats and Republicans together.

The California GOP is relieved to have a candidate at the top of the ticket in the governor’s race this fall after Tuesday’s primaries.

The two Democrats will advance to a runoff to decide who will face Wicker in November. So much for the big Blue Wave, it may be a big Red Wave.

Trump tweeted in support of John Cox, a Republican businessman who had previously mounted a quixotic campaign for the presidency in 2008. “Gavin Newsom and the Democrats are responsible for the ills”.

That said, as he finds himself in a neck-and-neck fight with Rouda to move on to the general election, Keirstead appeared clearly irked that the committee got involved in his side of the race. Three others also ran for the seat. Democrats are trying to win back control of the House, in part to better block Republican efforts to roll back the ACA.

Eight states saw their midterm election primaries take place Tuesday, with U.S. President Donald Trump casting a shadow over most of the debates. He has vowed to go even further by pursuing a state-run, single-payer system for all Californians.

“A lot of them are running in pretty competitive primaries but in districts that are ultimately not going to be that competitive in the general election”, said Jennifer Lawless, the director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington, D.C.

Meantime, Cox made it clear he’ll be fighting Newsom on taxes and California’s high cost of living.

The incumbent state senator Dianne Feinstein looks likely to face fellow Democrat Kevin De Leon in the November vote.

Democrats feared a glut of candidates in some districts would fragment their vote and shut them out of some races where they hope to capture Republican seats in November.

Despite New Jersey being a relatively blue state, Republicans have managed to maintain control of the governorship for Chris Christie’s two terms and five House seats out of New Jersey’s 12. Antonio Villaraigosa, the Democratic former mayor of Los Angeles, had 13 percent, while Republican Assemblyman Travis Allen drew 10 percent of votes, followed by the other two major Democrats.

Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats nationally to win a majority in the House. In New Jersey, incumbent senator Bob Menendez was re-nominated, but an obscure Democratic candidate who raised nearly no money and who had never held elected office, Lisa McCormick, received 38 percent of the vote.

Roby was the first member of Congress to withdraw her endorsement of the Republican President in 2016 after he was caught on video bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.

In South Dakota, another rural midwest state neighboring Montana, U.S. Representative Kristi Noem will compete with local politician Billie Sutton to become the next state governor.

At the same time, several progressive candidates who were endorsed by the groups Our Revolution and Justice Democrats and who refused to take corporate PAC money also made the cut.

Feinstein won her party’s nomination for another term, as widely expected.

Newsom quickly responded with a tweet of his own: “Please come campaign for him as much as possible”. No candidate won 50 percent plus one in California’s “jungle primary” of 27 gubernatorial candidates.

Assembly investigators did not substantiate a claim that Garcia groped a staff member who worked for another lawmaker in 2014.

Bob Hugin, a former biotech executive, is the top Republican contender. In the Southern California and Central Valley districts carried by Clinton, Democratic turnout in midterm elections often is only about half as high as in a presidential election year.

Democrats also put forward candidates in New Jersey that they believe will have a good chance of picking up a couple of Republican-held seats left open by retirements, and put up strong challenges against Republican Reps. While the prospects of the Democrats in the other two districts are still too close to officially call, one Democratic strategist, speaking anonymously because no races had been called, expressed confidence shut-outs had been avoided in all three races. These results come on the heels of last month’s primaries in West Virginia, which were another fairly successful night for the Republican establishment.

US President Donald Trump was revving up supporters to try to guarantee Republican seats stay Republican.