CA-48: House Majority PAC Congratulates Harley Rouda
November 13, 2018
Washington, D.C. – House Majority PAC congratulates Representative-Elect Harley Rouda on his victory in California’s 48th Congressional District.
“Voters have rejected out-of-touch career politician Dana Rohrabacher, and chosen to elect Harley Rouda who will work across the aisle to make real and lasting progress for Southern California,” said House Majority PAC Executive Director Charlie Kelly. “House Majority PAC was proud to have played a key role in helping Harley Rouda go to Washington where he’ll be a staunch advocate for affordable health care and investments in education and infrastructure.”
Defeating an entrenched incumbent was not going to be particularly easy in this historically Republican stronghold. However, with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 victory in the district, the increasingly favorable political environment for Democrats in suburban districts and Orange County, as well as the incumbent’s extremely out-of-touch views, Democrats had a real chance to pick-up this seat. That opportunity was endangered by the risk that Democrats could have been locked out of the general election given the large number of candidates on the June ballot and California’s complicated jungle primary system. April polling by HMP in the district indicated a possible lockout with Republican candidate Scott Baugh taking second place to incumbent Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. House Majority PAC worked to prevent a lockout by investing in digital, direct mail, and a TV ad on broadcast in the LA media market during the California jungle primary designed to bring down Republican candidate Scott Baugh and ensure a Democrat would advance to the November ballot. Baugh would finish the jungle primary in fourth place as Rouda advanced to the general election.
After successfully navigating the primary, House Majority PAC devoted significant resources to this expensive media market to help ensure Harley Rouda won the general election. This included a TV ad, a direct mail program, as well as partnering with Priorities USA Action for a digital campaign. The digital campaign included video ads which revealed how wildly out-of-touch Rohrabacher’s views were with Orange County families. HMP then ran a version of the digital ad on television with a buy on broadcast and cable in the LA media market.
HMP directly spent the following in CA-48: $3,805,403
HMP and partner investments totaled the following in CA-48: $9,898,239
HMP aired the following TV ads in CA-48:
HMP aired the following digital ads in CA-48: