Democrats announce plans to try to take down this California Republican – again
The fundraising arm for congressional Democrats announced its 2022 Republican targets Tuesday, and it’s again taking aim at Rep. David Valadao.
The California targets announced by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aren’t a surprise. They’re the same four seats Democrats lost to Republicans in 2020. The seats now are occupied by Reps. Valadao, R-Hanford, Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, Young Kim, R-La Habra, and Michelle Steel, R-Surfside.
All of those elections went to Republicans by narrow margins in 2020, and Democrats see a chance to win them back.
It will be tough. The party of a newly elected president historically tends to suffer losses in the following midterm election.
But they’re trying to use the recent COVID-19 pandemic relief bill signed into law by President Joe Biden as a cudgel against those Republicans.
“Every single Republican on this list voted against putting checks in pockets and shots in arms, and we’re going to make sure voters in their district know it,” said DCCC Chairman Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-New York. “The DCCC is prepared to protect our majority by recruiting compelling candidates and empowering their campaigns with the resources they need to draw the contrast between Democrats’ record of fighting for the middle class and Republicans’ toxic brand of defending conspiratorial insurrectionists and opposing direct relief for working families.”
Valadao served in Congress during the Obama administration. He lost his seat to Democrat TJ Cox in 2018, when a so-called blue wave swept Democrats into the majority in the House of Representatives. Democrats attributed their 2018 victory to focusing on health care. Valadao, like most Republicans, had frequently voted to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
Valadao then defeated Cox in a 2020 rematch.
Valadao’s district is tough for Republicans, which skews Democratic. Biden won the district by 11 points in the 2020 election, and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won it by 16 points in 2016. But Valadao still won the House seat in both of those years.
Valadao has disntanced himself from his party on some issues. He voted to impeach former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol — earning himself a Republican primary challenger and a rebuke from local Republicans — and was one of a few House Republicans who voted to grant certain immigrants a path to citizenship.
The race already has four candidates, including Valadao. Cox, a one-term congressman who lost in 2020 by only about 1,600 votes, intends to challenge Valadao again. Former Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra is also running for the seat, and former Fresno City Councilman Chris Mathys is challenging Valadao in the Republican primary due to Valadao’s vote to impeach Trump.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the fundraising arm of House Republicans, already announced its plans to defend Valadao and the three other Californians DCCC is targeting.
The announcements by both committees will mean increased investment in the district for the 2022 race. Politically affiliated committees spent millions on that district’s race alone in the 2020 election cycle, on TV and digital advertisements, mailers, signs and more.
This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 11:42 AM.
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