When a professional political operative describes an election as “nationalized,” it means the outcome could have consequences far beyond the locality in which it occurs and therefore is drawing outside attention and resources. This year’s congressional elections in California are a prime example, with two distinct and unusual aspects. First and most obviously, Democrats are hoping to gain as many as five California seats in the House of Representatives due to a partisan gerrymander of the state’s 52 districts last year. Thus the outcome in California could determine whether their party regains control of the House, where Republicans now hold a paper-thin majority. Meanwhile, outside the five districts that Democrats hope to switch, there are safely Democratic districts where progressive candidates are jousting with mainstream rivals, a subset of the national party’s ideological conflict. One example is the duel between progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, president of the Bay Area Regional Transit board, over the east Bay Area congressional seat Eric Swalwell held until resigning amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Another is in San Francisco, where state Sen. Scott Wiener faces San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan for the seat that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is vacating. While both are self-proclaimed progressives, there are specific issues dividing them, such as housing. Wiener has long championed making housing easier to build, but in San Francisco resisting development is a bedrock cause for those on the city’s left. There’s another conflict on California’s November ballot that’s become nationalized: Proposition 40, which would impose a 5% tax on the wealth of California’s roughly 200 billionaires. Once again, it’s on two distinct levels. First, it tests a concept of taxation that, if enacted, could spread to other states or even become a national issue. It has drawn attention in national political