SURVEY: It’s election season. Tell us what you want the candidates to know.
SHAFTER, Calif. — Voters in California’s 22nd Congressional district are feeling deja vu now that an onslaught of political advertisements has hit mailboxes, televisions and freeway billboards. Democratic challenger Rudy Salas is back for a rematch against the Republican incumbent, David Valadao, after losing by three percentage points in 2022. And once again, the stakes are enormous: The winner could well determine which party controls a deeply divided House of Representatives.
With Election Day just weeks away, polls forecast another nail-biter this November.
While the race is among the most competitive in the country, voter turnout data points to a different picture. The district, which stretches across all or parts of Kern, Tulare and Kings counties, counted the third-fewest ballots nationwide in 2022.
Biden carried the district by 14 points in 2020, and Democrats hold a 16-point advantage among registered voters. Yet a Republican, Valadao, has represented the region in Congress for most of the past decade.
That’s something Democratic canvassers like Noe Garcia of the Dolores Huerta Action Fund are hoping to change this year.
“We know that we can win it if we can get our community to vote,” he said during a recent training event at CSU Bakersfield.
Garcia is hopeful changes at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket will entice more people to turn out this election.
“With Kamala [Harris], people are actually more engaged and more interested in politics,” he said. “I remember canvassing this summer when Joe Biden was there, and people were like, ‘I’m not voting for either one of them.’”
Candidates stray from their party base
There’s no guarantee greater turnout will work in Democrats’ favor in the 22nd District. That’s partly because Valadao is no ordinary Republican.
The incumbent is one of just ten congressmen from his party to impeach former President Donald Trump for his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“I’m going to let history decide how that vote plays out,” he said during the district’s only debate earlier this month, while refusing to reveal his pick for president. “Any mention of who I’m voting for is going to be perceived as an endorsement, and so I’ve chosen to run my own race, focusing on the 22nd congressional district.”
The Hanford dairyman has sought to sidestep the kind of culture war talking points the GOP has made central to its national platform this election. For example, he walked back previous support for an exception-free, 15-week abortion ban and spoke about the need for immigration reform.
“I’ve always been an advocate for immigration, especially immigration reform because we have a process that’s been broken for a long time,” he said.
Likewise, Democratic challenger Rudy Salas broke from his party in meaningful ways as a state assembly member. In 2017, he was the lone Democrat to oppose a controversial gas tax, a decision that cost him a leadership position on a key committee.
“I took a beating over it; I lost my chairmanship over it; I was punished for sticking up for Central Valley families,” he said during the debate. “It’s a decision I would make again.”
Despite differences with their parties, the candidates haven’t been left behind, and have managed to build healthy funding to maintain their campaigns. Salas raised more than $2 million in individual contributions this cycle, according to campaign finance records. That’s more than double Valadao’s haul, though the incumbent has more money in the bank: $2 million compared to Salas’ $1.7 million.
Both candidates are caught in a last-minute marketing blitz – each spending around $1.4 million on the race in a district with nearly double the state’s poverty rate.
To flip the district, Democrats need a stronger message, voters say
On a recent Tuesday, Sharon Nicol was sipping champagne with her friends at Don Pepe’s, a Mexican restaurant in Shafter. They were celebrating an important anniversary: 60 years of friendship.
After a toast, Nicol shared she is voting for Valadao – not because of his party, but because she wants the candidate who can do the most for her rural community. Homelessness and crime are common, she added.
“I am a Republican, but when it comes to serving Kern County specifically … I don’t care if you’re Democrat or Republican, I want somebody who’s going to do work in my city and get results,” she said to vigorous nods from her friends around the table.
With just a few weeks to go until Election Day, polls show Salas with the slightest of edges over Valadao. But if Democrats want to flip this purplest of districts, they’ll have to give voters like Nicol a reason to do it. They also need to convince the tens of thousands more voters who choose to stay home to come out.
“I don’t have anything against Rudy [Salas], to be honest, I just don’t have anything to turn the tide the other way. There’s nothing he’s done that would convince me to vote for him,” Nicol said.
