Republican Darrell Issa Calls California Race For Democrat Seven Hours Before Polls Close

After representing the Republicans in Congress for 18 years, Darrell Issa is counting the days before he heads out the door and drifts off towards retirement. Unfortunately for the GOP and his hopeful successor in the party, the 65-year-old representative is confident that his departure means he’ll be packing the party away and taking it with him, in what he foresees to be the coming of a blue wave takeover of the 49th congressional district.

During an Election Day interview that he sat with Fox News for early in the afternoon on Tuesday, November 6, Rep. Issa didn’t give it a thought before concluding on the air that Democrat Mike Levin will be handily defeating colleague Diane Harkey. He reminded host Bill Hemmer that he had actually taken the seat from a Democrat back in 2001, and projected that at some point in the future the district will once again go red, but as far as he could see, considering redistricting, the changing of demographics, and the political times, voters are primed to select Levin.

“Quite frankly, we know the results already, there will be a Democrat representing La Jolla and Solana Beach for the first time in a number of years. For now, California is leaning very hard to the left,” The Hill quotes the congressman as stating.

He then claimed that because Republicans were out-spent by a two-to-one margin, it wasn’t much expected that Harkey would stand a chance, and therefore little effort was put forth to support her. “To a certain extent, you have to write off some of California,” he said. “My district was never in play this cycle and so it was never funded.”

“Quite frankly we know the results already and there will be a Democrat representing La Jolla to Solana Beach for the first time in a number of years," Issa predicted of the congressional seat he's vacatinghttps://t.co/OSzDM2l1OE

— POLITICO (@politico) November 6, 2018

For many who are in a position to be impacted by the decision, Rep. Issa’s announcement earlier this year that he would not be running for re-election came as a relief. Entertainer Bette Midler was among the citizens who took to Twitter to rejoice over the news, and even Issa has appeared to welcome the news. In fact, the White House went on to announce in September that he is being nominated to take over the United States Trade and Development Agency.

If there is one person, however, who might be taken aback by Rep. Issa calling Tuesday’s race in more than seven hours before the polls were scheduled to close, it is his party’s chosen replacement in Harkey, who didn’t seem to be worth much of a mention to the transitioning House veteran.