Surprises shake up congressional races in the Inland Empire

One of the biggest upsets in Tuesday’s “top two” primary came in a San Bernardino County congressional race where the top Democratic candidate, Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar, appears to have failed to collect enough votes to make it to the November runoff election, according to the preliminary ballot count.

The top two finishers were Republicans -- Rep. Gary Miller of Diamond Bar and state Sen. Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga.  What makes it so surprising is that Democrats have a five-percentage-point edge in registered voters in the district, which spans from Redlands to Upland.

Democratic leaders in Washington were hoping to pick up the seat, one of a handful in California they consider critical to the party’s effort to recapture control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

INTERACTIVE MAP: California primary results

The race in the 31st Congressional District was tight: Miller nabbed 26.7% of the vote, compared to 24.9% for Dutton and 22.8% for Aguilar.

The remaining votes went to a trio of other Democrats on the ballot: Justin Kim, Rita-Ramirez-Dean and Renea Wickman. Combined, they received a quarter of the votes, siphoning support away from Aguilar, who was backed by the Democratic Party.

The Redlands mayor missed making it to November by slightly more 1,000 votes, according to the state’s preliminary election results. Some votes still need to be counted, however, including provisional and late-arriving mail-in ballots.

That congressional race was among the top targets of "super PACs" and other independent expenditure committees, which spent more than $1 million. The vast majority came from the National Realtors Assn., which backed Miller.

Democratic rival nabs campaign bloopers of GOP Rep. Gary Miller

The campaign team for Democratic congressional candidate Pete Aguilar, the mayor of Redlands, got its hands on campaign commercial bloopers of Republican rival Rep. Gary Miller of Diamond Bar -- and on Monday took great glee in sharing them with the world.

Miller is shown in a white dress shirt, no tie, in front of a “green screen” at what appears to be a typical commercial shoot for a campaign ad. The outtakes show Miller repeatedly stumbling over his lines and having a little trouble with the teleprompter but nothing that would be considered a major political gaffe or serious foot-in-mouth.

The Aguilar campaign offered a review -- and, as one might expect -- it was thumbs down.

“It  shows a guy who is out of touch after years in Washington and who is making fun of what it takes to connect to folks," said Doug Herman, a spokesman for the Aguilar campaign. “His image is contrived to what he thinks it should be, not who he really is.’’

Herman said the outtakes were found on the YouTube channel of the political firm Revolvis Consulting and that the video was publicly available.

In a press released sent out Monday, the Aguilar campaign included screen shots to show that the outtakes were left unprotected and available to anyone to download. The Aguilar campaign posted an edited version of the outtakes on its campaign website and YouTube.

The Miller campaign didn’t flinch and responded by posting the outtakes on Miller's own campaign website.

"You should have seen some of the ones that weren't in the outtakes,'' said Chris Marsh, spokesman for the Miller campaign. "It was a lot of fun making the videos, and even funnier when we got a chance to see them, like the outtakes at the end of a Jackie Chan movie.''

Marsh said the experience taught the congressman two valuable lessons: never to film near an airport and always read what the technician loads into the teleprompter beforehand. 

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-- Phil Willon in Riverside