Down Goes Dana

California Moscow Republican Dana Rohrabacher is done, down 4% now with all the votes counted, but he's refusing to concede because that's the thing now.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who for decades represented wealthy, Republican-dominated portions of California's Orange County, lost his reelection bid to Democrat Harley Rouda Saturday night.

As votes continued to be counted following Tuesday's vote, Rouda's lead over Rohrabacher continued to grow. By Saturday night, the Democrat was leading the 15-term incumbent with 52% of the vote, compared to 48% for Rohrabacher — an advantage of about 8,500 voters, with all 395 precincts counted.
As of Saturday night, Rohrabacher had not yet officially conceded the race.

Rohrabacher first took office in 1989, campaigning off his experience working as a young speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. He cruised to victory for 14 more terms. Until recently, a Republican win in his district had been considered inevitable, given the region's long history as a conservative bastion in the deep blue state.

But much has changed in the 48th District, and for the first time, pollsters this year put down Rohrabacher's race as a toss-up. Analysts attributed the closeness of the race largely to Orange County’s shifting demographics, noting that more young and Latino voters were rallying around Democrats in what has long been considered a reliably Republican region of Southern California. At play were also Rohrabacher’s entanglements with Russia and his strident support for President Donald Trump — considered a mark against him in a district that narrowly went for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Rouda, a real estate investor who once registered as a Republican, campaigned on the promise that he would take a less divisive and partisan approach to representing the district. It was a message that proved popular with some Republicans and independents in Orange County, who didn’t see their values reflected by Trump — and by extension, Rohrabacher.

Rohrabacher had felt confident going into Election Day, he told BuzzFeed News on Sunday. But he also forecast that he could blame a loss on Democratic meddling. "We know that … unless we win by a recognized margin that the Democratic Party steals elections,” Rohrabacher told BuzzFeed News. “If you’re, if it’s under 5%, we know that this election could be stolen from us."

It's pretty clear at this point that the Trump regime narrative shaping up for the rest of the year and into January is "Look at all the elections Democrats stole from you".  The GOP wipeouts in New York, New Jersey and especially California will be blamed on imaginary perfidy.

When Trump outright refuses subpoenas from House Democrats next year, he'll say that the committee chairs and Nancy Pelosi aren't legitimately in charge, and that the White House won't cooperate until new elections are held in those states, because of course the elections in states where Republicans kept their gerrymandered House delegations like Ohio and NC are perfectly fine despite winning two-thirds of House districts with 51% of the vote.

Trump will call House Democrats "illegitimate" for the next two years in preparation for 2020.

Watch.