Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: After California primaries, we update five race ratings

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' House Race Ratings: As we've had time to digest the results from California's primaries on Tuesday, Daily Kos Elections has decided to update five House race ratings. Two are in the Democrats' direction, and three are in the Republicans' direction'one extremely so.

CA-10 from Likely R to Lean R: Democratic astronaut Jose Hernandez's 29% wasn't that imposing on paper, but that was held down by an independent bid from Chad Condit (son of Gary Condit, the former Modesto-area Democratic Rep. whose family name may still have some conservaDem appeal) that racked up 15%. The most important number here, though, is that Republican incumbent Jeff Denham only polled 48%, without any other GOPer on the ballot siphoning votes from him; not a positive sign, especially considering how low Dem turnout was.

CA-21 from Tossup to Likely R: The apparent loss of preferred Democratic candidate Blong Xiong here, and the dominant (57%) performance by Republican state Asm. David Valadao, makes Democratic hopes here pretty slim. Businessman John Hernandez may have a good surname for running in this mostly-Latino swing district, but his fundraising (he finished the primary $8,000 in debt; Xiong had some weaknesses but at least could raise money) and the general indifference to his campaign suggests that Dems aren't likely to make a big play here anymore.

CA-31: I'm not sure I've ever seen a race turn around from Tossup to Safe R in one fell swoop before, but that's what we're left with after the Top 2 primary in California's San Bernardino-based 31st district. Despite this being, on its face, a Dem-leaning district with a Hispanic plurality, the vagaries of the top 2 system wound up giving us two Republicans for the ballot in November: Rep. Gary Miller and state Sen. Bob Dutton. Miller and Dutton finished at 27 and 25 respectively, with Redlands mayor Pete Aguilar, the Dem expected to finish in the top 2, narrowly behind at 23, getting hosed by the presence of three other minor Dems (one of whom, Justin Kim, got 13%). A write-in candidacy isn't possible under the new law, so one of the GOPers will be the new congressman here.

The good news is that this is the only place in California where the Top 2 primary blew up in our faces, but it looks like the DCCC was so focused on preventing this from happening in CA-26 that they let CA-31 fly under the radar, and it doesn't seem like local Dems foresaw this possibility. We can also take some comfort in that this will still be a good pickup opportunity in 2014, when there will presumably be only one Republican (whichever of Miller or Dutton wins the '12 general) on the primary ballot, but for now this counts as a royal Dem screwup.

CA-41 from Lean D to Tossup: On paper, this is the state's best pickup opportunity for the Dems, an open seat with a Latino majority that went 59% for Obama in 2008. However, the GOPer here, Riverside Co. Supervisor John Tavaglione, put up strong numbers in the primary, 45% to Dem Mark Takano's 36% (and it went 55-45 in favor of the GOP, adding up all the minor candidates). Hispanic turnout will probably be better in November, but this isn't looking like much of a slam dunk anymore.

CA-52 from Lean R to Tossup: Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray has seemed a decent bet to retain this San Diego-area seat (despite it having moved from 45% to 55% Obama), but his Tuesday numbers don't look the least bit convincing. He polled at a mere 41%, while the top 2 Dems here, Scott Peters (who'll probably advance) and Lori Saldana combined for 45. There were some minor-league teabaggers eating up some of Bilbray's share, but the overall GOP share was only 50%.