Orange County GOP chairman Fred Whitaker said Republicans lost four local House seats in part because "significant numbers of Republicans we turned out, look to have voted Democrat." Cox's higher vote total in OC compared to House Republicans supports that notion.
Interestingly, some GOP politicos see the high number of split-tickets as encouraging. They think it means Republicans could win back the OC House seats if they run the right candidates. To them, it'd be WAY worse if the House seats flipped blue chiefly behind loyal Democrats.
Undiscussed in Republicans' early analysis of who "the right candidates" might be: if or how they'll differentiate their stances from the national GOP platforms in 2020.
