County supervisor in scandal. Democrat trying to hold on. Who wins close California midterm?
As different as they are, Rep. Josh Harder and Tom Patti’s priorities align.
When asked about top three priorities, Harder talks about cost of living, health care access and homelessness. Patti, a San Joaquin County supervisor running as a Republican, mentions the same. Some of their solutions are the same, though others starkly diverge.
Both slam the other for the far ends of their parties, but really, they meet in the middle on a lot, which is not uncommon for Central Valley candidates, particularly Democrats.
Where they most differ is simply in who they are — biographies, experiences, hometowns — despite what they say about each other.
No, Patti is not a so-called MAGA Republican, a GOP person who backs former President Donald Trump and his theories. In the next presidential cycle, he said he would be “thrilled with a John Kennedy type, Blue Dog Democrat” or Nikki Haley Republican.
“If your name is Trump or Biden, I believe you’ve disappointed us. Both each in their unique way,” Patti said in an interview in his Stockton office.
And no, Harder is not a hard-progressive Democrat, having even concurred with Trump on some water resolutions in the Central Valley. He’s bucked the party on gas taxes. He disagrees with Sacramento politicians’ move on the Delta tunnel project.
“On the issues that matter most, we have to make sure that we’re standing up for ourselves, not for one party or another. I think that’s true on water, that’s true on health care prices, and that’s true on jobs and taxes,” Harder said in an interview after speaking with voters in Mountain House, a community at the far west of the new 9th Congressional District.
Divergent paths
One is a clean-cut politician from out of town. The other built a business in town, and stirred controversy on the local board.
Harder, D-Tracy, joined Congress in 2019 by unseating Republican Congressman Jeff Denham.
He was born and raised in Turlock, which is outside the 9th Congressional District but in the district he currently represents. Harder, 36, moved to Tracy with his wife and newborn daughter this year.
After earning degrees from Stanford and Harvard, Harder worked in venture capital. He moved back to Turlock and taught at Modesto Junior College while running for Congress.
“You moved to the Bay Area, venture capital guy, Harvard graduate, smart young man. Then you moved back because you care about that region. You want to be the representative. Fantastic,” Patti commended Harder on running in a different district in 2018 that held Turlock and Modesto.
But now Harder is running in a district that does not hold Turlock. Patti said of Harder running in the new 9th: “all of a sudden that region is not important to you?”
“Did Modesto and Turlock fall off the map?”
Patti was born in New York. Patti, 59, moved to Stockton as a kid where he graduated high school and attended Delta College. He went to Catskill, New York, to train as a boxer with the famed Cus D’Amato and Mike Tyson.
Leaving the ring behind, he worked at the crane company his father started in San Joaquin County, which Patti now owns and operates.
Patti was elected to San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors — he represents District 3 — in 2016.
He faced two ethics investigations this year, which he said in a telephone call were political and meant to harm his reputation.
The board voted to censure Patti in September over a complaint related to the way he treated another supervisor’s chief of staff, who ended up resigning from her position because of the workplace’s atmosphere.
The board decided not to censure Patti in early October over a separate complaint filed by the same supervisor. In a phone call, Patti said the worst of the allegations was related to bribery and corruption. He said that there was no truth, substance or due process in looking into those allegations.
Officials told local news outlets that the information was protected under attorney-client privilege.
Patti moved to revise the ethics policy amid the investigations, which the board rejected.
Given the rules, Patti felt supervisors are “deprived of my constitutional right to defend” themselves.
“At one point I’m like, we got to strike this thing and start over. Right now it’s a weaponized mechanism to attack a supervisor,” he said of the rules.
Ethics investigations aside, Harder said that even just having another Republican who might add to the GOP majority in Congress could be dangerous: “I think it is a pretty scary spot, especially with some national Republicans. I think the fact that folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene aren’t on the fringe, they’re holding the reins of the circus, should be a compelling problem for all of us.”
The 9th Congressional District
The race in the 9th Congressional District is not viewed as competitive as other races in California’s Central Valley, with analysts giving Harder the nod because of the district’s makeup and his fundraising efforts.
The new 9th Congressional District spans Tracy to Thornton, centered around Stockton. It holds most of San Joaquin County and reaches into Stanislaus and Contra Costa counties.
The 9th has consistently favored a Democrat. Analysts claim the contest tightened after the primary, with many saying it simply leans left. Forty-four percent of voters are registered as Democrats; 28% are Republicans.
Running in the 9th was one of the options Harder was left with after the redistricting commission split apart his current district, the 10th. Turlock, for instance, was cut into the new 4th and 13th.
Harder originally announced that he would run in the 13th, where the election is more difficult for a Democrat; the 13th is a toss-up, per many analysts, though it was rated as a race that leaned in favor of a Democrat prior to the June primary.
Rep. Jerry McNerney, who represents the 9th now, joined a wave of House Democrats who decided not to run again in 2022. That opened the door for Harder to run in the 9th, which overlaps with about a third of the district he represents now.
Money-wise, Harder had a whopping $4.5 million on hand at the end of September, according to the Federal Election Commission. Patti had almost $454,000.
Cash on hand is a good indicator of how much money a candidate has left for campaigning or unexpected circumstances.
Prior to the most recent filings, Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of election-tracker Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said he was curious about outside spending in this race: “Given Harder’s huge warchest, outside Republicans likely will need to spend there to knock him off.”
Turnout
In a crowded June primary, Harder led with 37.8% of the votes. Patti took 28.6%.
Overall, Democrats scored 51%.
Despite the closeness between the parties, analysts said that Democrats do better in the fall. A California Democrat has not lost the general election in the last decade if the party earned at least 50% of the votes in the primary. The same is not true for the GOP.
The primary, however, is not the only indicator of what will occur in the general election.
That is especially so in a year when elections for statewide office at the top of the ballot — governor, U.S. Senate, for example — are all but decided for Democrats. That might hinder Democrats’ incentive to mail in ballots.
Historically, midterm elections favor the party opposite the president: this year, the GOP. Nationally, Joe Biden’s approval rating has consistently been low, which will also hurt Democrats, analysts predict. Though a recent Berkeley IGS poll put Biden’s approval rating by Californians at 52%.
Many think that these trends will hand the gavel of political control to Congressman Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and Republicans in 2023.
Still, Democrats hope that the Supreme Court’s decision to gut Roe v. Wade, which set federal abortion rights nearly 50 years ago, will inspire Democrats to show up in November.
Abortion
The decision does not affect people in California seeking abortions like it does in other states such as Texas and Idaho. The ruling did inspire state lawmakers, however, to put abortion on the ballot in November via Proposition 1.
Prop. 1 would include the broad language that reproductive health decisions remain between a patient and their doctor, not to be inhibited by state law, in the state’s constitution.
But California already has some of the most open abortion laws in the country, and is working to pass more initiatives in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s aim to instill a “reproductive freedom” state. Currently, people in or coming to California can seek an abortion without restriction until the point of fetal viability, when a fetus could presumably survive outside of the womb, which is about 24 weeks. After that, someone can still have an abortion if they and their doctor agree that their health is endangered.
In parts of the Sacramento Valley, a lot of people are not as keen on abortion access, citing predominantly Christian and Catholic beliefs.
Patti and Harder agree on abortion access, even if they don’t know it.
Harder, who ran into criticism with a 2017 flub in which he concurred with questioners who asked if he agreed that there should be no exceptions for having an abortion throughout nine months of pregnancy, supports California’s standards.
“I believe that abortion should be legal and safe,” Patti said in a September interview. “That’s what I have to say. It will be in the state of California. It has been in the state of California.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "County supervisor in scandal. Democrat trying to hold on. Who wins close California midterm?."
