CA Housing Shortage to Flip House and Senate?

An empty lot in Pasadena (Photo – G. P).

As the midterm election nears this coming Tuesday, California’s restrictive housing policies in its urban job centers could play a central role.

By Ethan Elkind

As residents in these major job-producing cities on the coast close their communities to new housing construction, they have forced Democratic-leaning middle- and low-income residents into “super commutes” in far-flung, inland areas. Middle class Californians are also fleeing the state altogether to lower-cost states, like Nevada or Texas.

And now we see that these lower-cost regions are becoming battlegrounds for control of the United States House of Representatives and possibly the United States Senate, with the influx of these new Democratic-leaning voters. For example, the Modesto district of Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham is now a competitive race with challenger Josh Harder. But that district is mainly competitive because it’s had an influx of Bay Area super-commuters seeking lower-cost housing in some of those new sprawl communities.

Or take competitive Senate races in Nevada (Democrat Jacky Rosen challenging Republican Dean Heller) and Texas (Democrat Beto O’Rourke challenging Republican Ted Cruz). The influx of priced-out Californians who tend to vote Democrat could be a difference maker.

Of course, it’s not economically, environmentally or morally healthy for California’s job-producing cities that this exodus is happening. But the effect is already reverberating across the country in this coming election, as exclusive coastal housing policies re-distribute Democrats across national political battlegrounds.

Ethan Elkind directs the climate program at UC Berkeley Law, with a joint appointment at UCLA Law. His book “Railtown” was published by the University of California Press.