Thursday, October 15, 2026
B.C. votes in 9 days

California’s 8th District

U.S. House · CA-8

Election day November 3, 2026 · forecast of October 15, 2026

Our forecast gives the Democrats a more than 99% chance of winning, with an average lead of 47.4 points.

Safe seat. Chance of a final gap under 5 points: under 1%.

Projected vote share

Projection by party

  • Democrat 73.7%

    John Garamendi, incumbent

  • Republican 26.3%

    Rudy Recile

Thin vertical mark: 2024 result.

Compared with the average

Democrat Republican
CA-8 73.7%26.3%
National averageUnited States 54.5%+19.2 44.2%−17.9

Simple average of the 435 districts, not weighted by population.

Projection track

How the projection has moved

Current member

John Garamendi · Democrat

Primary results

Held June 2, 2026 · Certified official result · Official source

Top-two primary John Garamendi · Advanced to the general election 54.4% 97,155 votes
Top-two primary Rudy Recile · Advanced to the general election 27.8% 49,599 votes

Who's running

The candidates

Candidates for the upcoming election.

  • Democrat Incumbent

    John Garamendi

    source
  • Republican Challenger

    Rudy Recile

    source

Previous election (2024)

The Democrats won by 35.7 points.

Our current projection: the Democrats ahead by 47.4 points.

Where these voters came from

This district was redrawn in the 2025-2026 redistricting. Share of its voters from each former district:

  • Former district 4 44%
  • Former district 8 37%
  • Former district 9 10%
  • Former district 7 10%

Nearby districts

Party ahead and how sure the projection is.

  • CA-10 Democrat, safe seat
  • CA-9 Democrat, safe seat
  • CA-7 Democrat, safe seat
  • CA-12 Democrat, safe seat
  • CA-14 Democrat, safe seat
  • CA-11 Democrat, safe seat

Watch list

The tightest races

The smallest projected gaps between the top two.

  1. AZ-2Republican52%5.7-point gap
  2. KY-6Republican53%5.8-point gap
  3. VA-1Republican58%5.8-point gap
Forecast updated