Red shoots for Republicans sprout in deep blue California
David Mark
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LANCASTER, California — In sports, the ability to win on the road, playing in front of hostile crowds on unfamiliar turf, can be the difference between contenders and pretenders. Similarly, in politics, it’s notable when a party’s candidates consistently win in states that strongly favor its opponents.
In 2022, House Democrats beat Republican incumbents in red states such as Ohio and Texas. But they lost more seats in the nation’s two biggest blue behemoths, California and New York.
That political equivalent of “away game” wins made all the difference for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, winning the House majority 222-213 and ending House Democrats’ four-year reign in control of the chamber.
REP. DAVID VALADAO DEFEATS DEMOCRAT RUDY SALAS IN CALIFORNIA HOUSE RACE
House Republicans’ big New York pickups have received the bulk of attention in post-mortems on the 2022 election cycle, giving the GOP 11 out of the 26 seats. This while Empire State voter registration favors Democrats over Republicans by more than a 2-1 margin.
But for Republicans to win the House in 2022, strong GOP performance was just as important in California, the most populous state, with nearly 40 million people and where just two years earlier President Joe Biden crushed former President Donald Trump 63% to 34%.
GOP success in a trio of House districts in and near California’s agriculture heartland that usually favors Democrats offers lessons for Republicans to win on hostile territory.
One key way of winning Biden-leaning districts is keeping a distance from Trump, the polarizing former president who is seeking a White House return in 2024. Rep. David Valadao, one of 10 House Republicans who voted in early 2021 to impeach Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 riots, is among the two of those 10 who returned to Congress in 2023.
Valadao represents the southern Central Valley and eastern Bakersfield 22nd Congressional District. He was joined in victory by Rep. Mike Garcia in the 27th Congressional District, covering Lancaster, Palmdale, and Santa Clarita in northern Los Angeles County. Lifelong farmer Rep. John Duarte, in the mid-Central Valley 13th Congressional District, won an open seat in what turned out to be the closest House race of the year, prevailing by 564 votes out of more than 133,000 cast.
In the three districts, under new lines based on 2020 census figures, Biden in 2020 would have prevailed over Trump by double-digit margins. And farther down Interstate 5 in newly drawn Orange County districts, freshmen GOP Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel won reelection in 2022 in House districts that would have backed Biden over Trump, though by closer margins.
As a result, Republicans now hold 12 House seats from California out of 52.
Duarte, Garcia, and Valadao, representing districts far from California glamour centers Hollywood and Silicon Valley, didn’t run as flame-throwing conservative ideologues but rather as pragmatic problem-solvers.
That approach played well in the upper reaches of Los Angeles County — which, while only a 90-minute drive from the liberal bastions of West Los Angeles, is a world away politically. And particularly in the Central Valley, where voters tend to reward centrist, relatively nonideological candidates, said Corrin Rankin, the California Republican Party’s Central Valley regional vice chairwoman.
Central Valley voters “really are moderates. There’s a big population of independents. The Democrats, the independents, and Republicans don’t sway too far off from one another,” Rankin told the Washington Examiner. “They really can think about who the best representative would be. They don’t worry too much about ideology.”
Normal political labels don’t hold up particularly well in the region, agreed Steven Greenhut, a senior fellow at the Washington-based R Street Institute, a free market think tank.
“Even Democrats in the Central Valley have a different attitude. It’s more blue-collar. It’s more agriculture-oriented,” Greenhut told the Washington Examiner.
A key public policy theme also flows through the three Republican-won House districts: water, or lack thereof. Far inland from coastal California, landscapes familiar from movies and on television, residents in this part of the state face challenges to ensure there is enough water for residents to use and for businesses to stay up and running.
Conservatives have long argued that environmental policies exacerbate the perilous lack of water in California. That proved a successful campaign issue, to varying degrees, for the House Republican trio in California’s lower center.
“We haven’t been building water infrastructure to any real degree since the 1970s, and the state’s population has more than doubled,” said Greenhut, a Sacramento-area resident and author of the 2020 book Winning the Water Wars: California Can Meet Its Water Needs By Promoting Abundance Rather Than Managing Scarcity? “It’s an issue of day-to-day importance in California.”
Democrats have tried to push back by arguing climate change has meant less rain in California and longer droughts. They cite low snowpack from the Sierra Nevada, which flows into the state’s second-largest river, the San Joaquin.
“The climate is changing. The reason there’s not enough water is there isn’t enough rain. If you’re not addressing the climate crisis, you’re not addressing water problems in the Central Valley,” said Christian Romo, chairman of the Kern County Democratic Committee.
Yet that argument ran dry for many Central California residents, at least in the 2022 campaign cycle.
Still Reagan-esque country
Rep. Mike Garcia has been a persistent Democratic electoral target. The San Fernando Valley native’s parents immigrated from Mexico in 1959. A star student and natural leader, Garcia went east for college to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He earned a master’s degree in national security policy studies from Georgetown University and soon went on active-duty service.
After flight school at Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, Garcia was deployed as a F/A-18 aviator from the USS Nimitz, and during the Iraq War, he participated in over 30 missions. Once he was honorably discharged, Garcia returned home to Southern California and worked as a business development manager at Raytheon Intelligence & Space.
These experiences made Garcia a natural to seek office in California’s old 25th Congressional District, which was a conservative-leaning swath of northern Los Angeles County and a bit of neighboring Ventura County, home to many retired military and police officers. The district also, notably, was home to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, in Simi Valley.
Garcia won a May 2020 special election by beating Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith. Proving that wasn’t a fluke, Garcia in November 2020 won a full two-year term.
Post-census redistricting changed the complexion of Garcia’s district — and not in a way favorable to a lawmaker with his conservative voting record. After all, Garcia is a co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, an anti-abortion proposal. Garcia also signed on to a brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which it did in its June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, effectively making abortion a state matter.
Garcia’s new seat, the 27th Congressional District, does not include Simi Valley or the Reagan Library. Instead, it’s entirely in reliably blue Los Angeles County. Garcia’s district now takes in the cities of Lancaster, Palmdale, and Santa Clarita and the northwestern San Fernando Valley. The communities are home to many young families who moved out of Los Angeles and similarly costly areas nearby and have brought their liberal proclivities and Democratic voting tendencies north into the suburbs and exurbs. In 2020, Biden would have beaten Trump in the 27th Congressional District 55.1% to 42.7%.
Still, Garcia adapted to the changing political circumstances. He drew praise for apologizing after likening the Biden administration to the Nazi regime during an August interview on a conservative podcast. Garcia was referring to the FBI search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of Trump.
“I regret my comments. I deeply am apologetic for those comments,” Garcia said during a Yom Kippur service at a synagogue in his district on the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Garcia made the comments without giving a heads-up to local reporters, suggesting the apology wasn’t just a move of political expediency. Rather it was a sign of heartfelt repentance that stood in contrast to the “no apologies” approach of firebrand Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), among others.
Weeks later, Garcia beat Smith in their third matchup over 2 1/2 years. This suggests that even though Garcia no longer represents the Reagan Library, he’s been able to channel the 40th president’s free market tendencies and political acumen — and that constituents are receptive.
“Each district has its individual quirks and traits. In the case of Garcia, I’ve said since he first ran that’s a case where Republicans just recruited extremely well,” said Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles and publisher of the California Target Book, profiling Golden State elected officials and districts.
Cathy Abernathy, a Republican consultant in Bakersfield, about 88 miles north of Lancaster, said Garcia has succeeded by connecting with voters. And it doesn’t hurt that the square-jawed former Navy fighter pilot has got “a kind of a movie-star quality as a candidate.”
The congressman has made an impression with voters, said Jose Frias, a Lancaster resident outside of City Hall, which serves the city of about 176,000 people in northern Los Angeles County’s Antelope Valley, in the western Mojave Desert.
“We see him at events, not just election years,” Frias told the Washington Examiner, with occasional tumbleweeds blowing by in the desert landscape’s wind-swept streets. “With Biden in office, I’m glad there’s some opposition fighting him.”
McCarthy not the only Bakersfield political star
Bakersfield, with more than 400,000 residents and a metro population nearing a million, usually receives national attention due to its longtime congressman, Republican Kevin McCarthy, who is now House speaker and a local boy made good.
The last couple of years, though, also have showered national media attention on McCarthy’s House colleague from neighboring areas of Kern County, Rep. David Valadao. As one of 10 pro-impeachment Republicans in 2021, Valadao largely managed to escape Trump’s wrath as most others lost 2022 reelection bids or decided to retire and avoid political embarrassment. Valadao and Rep. Don Newhouse (R-WA) are the only two House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump but are still in Congress.
Valadao, a 45-year-old dairy farmer whose ancestors came to the Central Valley from Portugal, was first elected to Congress in 2012. Valadao lost in the 2018 blue wave to Rep. TJ Cox (D-CA) before winning the seat back in 2020. (Cox meanwhile in August 2022 was arrested by the FBI on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, financial institution fraud, and campaign contribution fraud, to which the former one-term congressman pleaded not guilty.)
Valadao’s new district is majority Latino. It includes the eastern Bakersfield area and moves north across rural Kern, Kings, and Tulare counties. The district takes in communities reliant on local agriculture, including Arvin, Corcoran, Delano, Lamont, Lindsay, McFarland, Porterville, Shafter, and Wasco.
The 22nd Congressional District also has more Democrats than Republicans. In 2020, Biden would have won there over Trump 55.3% to 42.3%. Nonetheless, Valadao in 2022 beat his Democratic challenger, Assemblyman Rudy Salas, in one of the most heated and expensive House battles in the country.
Valadao repeatedly hit Salas on inflation and the economy, while Salas went after the incumbent Republican for his opposition to legalized abortion. For a few weeks, the usually sleepy Central Valley House district became a focal point of the political universe. It was the congressional district that saw the largest number of TV ads from Sept. 5 to Oct. 30, 2022, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. During that six-week span, more than 44,000 ads were aired.
So many ads aired because they’re considerably cheaper than large California media markets in Southern California and the Bay Area — all of which was helpful to Valadao, said Sragow, the Democratic consultant, who also teaches at the University of Southern California.
Compared to large media markets where it’s hard for House members to get attention, “in the Central Valley, being a congressman is somebody. They’re very small media markets. You can build a brand that’s practically impregnable,” Sragow said.
And while there were several big issues in the closely watched House race, one stood out that was at once decidedly unsexy yet of the utmost importance. Water rights became a regular point of contention between the congressional rivals. It’s always a huge worry in the consistently dry, agrarian district that has long faced drought conditions.
Valadao’s advocacy for local water rights has helped him survive in a Democratic-leaning district.
“Valadao is very much from the agriculture base,” said Abernathy, the GOP consultant. “We produce food and fuel, and he fits that very well.”
Abernathy, a longtime aide to former Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA), McCarthy’s predecessor representing the Bakersfield area in Washington, said, “The people who live here, work here, and vote here know we have to fight environmental groups who are trying to take our water.”
Abernathy, who brought on McCarthy as a local Thomas office intern in 1987, the start the future speaker’s political career, added, “Many voters may be registered Democratic. But once they’re here for a while … economics, family, schools” drive them more toward Republican candidates.
Locals feel the same way.
“In Porterville, we often just run out of water,” said Mark Machado, in the Tulare County city of about 60,000 people. “The fact that Valadao is a dairyman gives him a lot of credibility.”
Valadao in 2022 beat Democratic rival Salas 51.5% to 48.5%. But the district is hardly in the bag for Republicans, particularly as 2024 is a presidential year. Whether Biden or another Democrat is the party’s nominee, they’ll likely bring in voters who didn’t participate in the 2022 midterm elections. Of course, so will the Republican standard-bearer, whether it’s Trump or another GOP contender.
Eyeing a rematch, Salas has already filed to run against Valadao in 2024. though the Democrat hasn’t declared his House candidacy.
Romo, the Kern County Democratic Committee chairman, said members of his party in the area — “Valleycrats” in his nomenclature — aren’t progressive like their coastal brethren, particularly because a top local industry is oil.
Democrats who have made environmental issues a top priority, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, stand to lose working-class votes in the Central Valley and similar areas of the state, Romo said.
“When you have a governor who wants to eliminate fossil fuels and have major cutbacks in oil production, that influences the voters,” Romo said. “People are getting frustrated with Biden’s agenda as well because it aims to cut back on fossil fuels.”
Fruitful election for first-time GOP House candidate
While water issues contributed to a steady stream of campaign trail discussion in Valadao’s successful reelection bid, in points north across the Central Valley, they were practically a flood.
John Duarte, a fourth-generation farmer from Modesto who grows almonds, pistachios, and grapes through his family’s Duarte Nursery, rode water issues to a narrow victory over Democratic Assemblyman Adam Gray. The new 13th Congressional District over which Duarte and Gray battled is a purple stretch of Central Valley farmland. It includes all of Merced County and parts of surrounding, smaller population counties.
Merced, which hosts the newest University of California campus, is an anchor of the district, between smaller communities such as Atwater, Ceres, Chowchilla, Coalinga, Lathrop, Madera, Mendota, and Patterson. And each has faced threats of going dry, which dovetailed nicely with Duarte’s anti-regulation campaign message.
The Republican said his experience working with people across the Central Valley through his family’s plant nursery business shaped his approach to asking voters for their support. Duarte has had personal experience with confronting federal water and land policies. Starting in 2011, he mounted a bid against federal environmental regulations that rallied farmers and conservatives around him.
A federal district court judge ruled in 2016 that Duarte violated a provision of the Clean Water Act known as “Waters of the United States” by plowing over protected wetlands on his property. Government officials said the Tehama County field had not been plowed in more than two decades and that Duarte needed a permit before ripping up its seasonal wetlands, which served as a habitat for plants and animals.
Duarte and allies said it was a case of the government interfering with agriculture. Duarte said he had planted winter wheat there just as previous property owners had done. The Duarte Nursery co-founder settled before going to a trial over penalties in 2017. Duarte agreed to pay $1.1 million in civil penalties and environmental mitigation measures. Duarte said he settled to avoid expenses that would jeopardize his family business and workers.
Yet while Duarte’s financial penalty was large, it would eventually help boost him politically. Conservatives rallied around Duarte’s cause and his name recognition grew. All of which came in handy running for the open 13th Congressional District. Though district voters in 2020 would have voted for Biden over Trump 54.3% to 43.4% and it has more registered Democrats than Republicans, Duarte was able to play into local resentment against Democratic environmental policies coming out of Washington, D.C., and California’s state capital of Sacramento.
“There’s a great deal of concern about water in the Central Valley,” said Greenhut, of the R Street Institute. “In the Central Valley, farms are laying fallow because there’s not enough water.”
Corrin, the California Republican Party Central Valley representative, said Duarte’s House race came down to the Republican first-time candidate’s authenticity with voters.
“John Duarte being a farmer really struck a chord with people,” Rankin said. “You have an instinct that this person is knowledgeable and close to this issue.”
Abernathy said the now-congressman was particularly impressive for a first-time House candidate.
“Duarte was excellent. He was walking the streets, which I don’t usually advise candidates in a congressional race because they’re so large,” Abernathy said.
The 13th Congressional District race turned out to be the nation’s tightest. So Democrats are no doubt are eyeing it for 2024, when the presidential tickets will help turn out voters.
Despite successes, a tough slog ahead for California GOP
For all their candidates’ successes winning House districts in 2022, Republicans still have a tough time challenging Democrats elsewhere in the state. Newsom cruised to reelection in 2022 after easily beating back a 2021 recall attempt.
And one of the best and brightest candidates Republicans have fielded in some time, Lanhee Chen, lost his race for state controller. Chen, a policy wunderkind who earned four Harvard degrees and now lectures at Stanford University, portrayed himself in the starkest terms as a “Not Trump” Republican, focusing instead on fiscal oversight duties of the state controller’s office. But in the Trump era, Chen couldn’t overcome what is effectively a scarlet “R” for any statewide Republican candidate.
Republicans have lost every statewide race in California from 2010 on. And last year, Democrats easily retained their supermajorities in the state Senate and Assembly.
Which has Democratic candidates and operatives eager for the 2024 elections and the opportunity to dethrone Duarte, Garcia, and Valadao in districts where Republicans should be underdogs, along with likelier tougher House contests in Orange County, where Steel and Kim are seeking reelection in seats where they’ve previously beaten lavishly funded challengers.
While some Republicans would like to see Trump disappear from the national political scene and have their party nominate somebody else for president in 2024, many Democrats not-so-secretly yearn for his return.
In the House races lost to Duarte, Garcia, and Valadao, Democrats have lamented the relatively low turnout compared to a presidential year — particularly since Newsom, in romping to reelection, focused on enhancing his nationwide political profile at the expense of down-ballot Democrats.
In 2024, “I think there will be even double the turnout. Particularly if Trump is the GOP nominee,” said Romo, chairman of the Kern County Democratic Party.
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California Republicans have shown there is a path to success. It involves finding candidates with real ties to local communities who can speak fluidly about issues residents care about most — even if they sometimes diverge from the national GOP agenda.
One way or another, they’ll be among the most fierce-fought, expensive, and closely watched House races this campaign cycle.