According to this article, it is likely that the only two candidates on the November 2016 ballot in California’s 46th district will be Democrats. In the primary, there are four Republicans running, and three Democrats. It is probable that with four Republicans in the race, no Republican will manage to place first or second. The 46th district is in Orange County, California’s third-most populous county. No incumbent is running, because the incumbent, Loretta Sanchez, is running for U.S. Senate.
California has used top-two in two elections so far, 2012 and 2014. Although there have been some November U.S. House races in those years between two Democrats in Los Angeles County, so far there have been no Democrat-versus-Democrat general election races in any of the U.S. House races to the south and east of Los Angeles County. Those counties include Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties, all very populous.
NO robot party hack primaries.
General election ballot access ONLY via equal nominating petitions.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
There are 3 serious Democrats and 2 serious Republicans. Because of lower Democratic turnout, there is a possibility of two Republicans. In addition, more candidates for a party means more votes for a party, because some voters do choose based on the candidate. So the two extra Republican candidates will draw from Democrats as well.
So let’s say a 52D-48R split, and the two extra Republicans get a total of 8%. That makes it 52D divided 3 ways, and 40R divided 2 ways, and 8% for the also rans.
If the D’s split evenly and the R’s split evenly then it will be 17-17-17 and 20-20.
More likely Correa will do better, and push the other D’s lower. say 21-15-15. And the R’s won’t split the vote evenly, which will pur Correa up against the top R.
Incidentally, San Diego is California’s 2nd most populous county, Orange is 3rd. And CA-46 is the most Democratic congressional district south and east of LA, other than CA-51 which includes Imperial County and the border area of San Diego County (Chula Vista, National City, and San Ysidro portion of San Diego city).