National Democrats Said They’d Stay Out of This California Race. Then They Picked Jasmeet Bains

National Democrats have zeroed in on the 22nd Congressional District, a swing seat in the Central Valley, as a key part of their strategy to win back control of Congress.

Two Democrats are vying for the chance to challenge incumbent Republican Rep. David Valadao, whose defeat is even more crucial in the wake of court decisions that blew up Democrats’ redistricting plans.

After saying they would not pick a side in the primary, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee stepped in recently with a last-minute endorsement of moderate state Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains over progressive college professor Randy Villegas.

That triggered an angry reaction from local Democratic leaders.

“They lied to all of us,” said Christian Romo, chair of the Kern County Democratic Central Committee, who said staff at the DCCC had told him multiple times that their organization would not get involved in the primary absent a situation in which it appeared two Republican candidates would advance. Under California’s open primary, the two candidates with the most votes advance to the November election, regardless of party affiliation.

Romo and his counterparts in Tulare, Fresno and Kings counties endorsed Villegas and publicly denounced the DCCC’s move to add Bains to their priority list of flippable districts. The national party, Romo said, was trying to bigfoot state and local Democrats who earlier this year could not reach a consensus on whom to endorse.

“It’s a slap to the face of the local parties,” Romo said.

A Liberal Fight Over Which is the Best Democrat

For months, liberal activists have butted heads over which brand of Democrat is the most capable of wooing enough working-class and Latino voters to win the conservative-leaning district — the same tug-of-war between centrists and progressive populists that has played out across the country.

After redistricting, Democrats have a slight voter registration advantage with 42%, while 26% of registered voters are Republican and 22% are registered without party preference, according to the California Target Book.

The DCCC’s decision to get involved is another example of establishment Democrats’ unwillingness to take a risk on a candidate like Villegas, who is endorsed by progressives like the Working Families Party, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in a battleground race.

Bains supporters argue that she is more electable than Villegas given her background as a physician and the district’s high reliance on Medicaid, which Valadao voted to cut. She also touts her independent voting streak that has sometimes put her at odds with Democratic Party leadership.

“Although she’s a Democrat, she’s not afraid. She doesn’t have to necessarily vote party lines,” said Mario Nunez, the mayor pro-tem of the City of Delano and a registered nonpartisan who is backing Bains. “She’ll vote against party lines if it helps within her area.”

Establishment Groups Line Up Behind Bains

Ironically though, it’s the establishment power players in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., such as the labor union SEIU California, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Democratic legislative leaders who have lined up to support Bains.

Her addition to the shortlist of flippable races nationwide unlocks access to fundraising, polling and DCCC staff assistance.

“This election is too important” for the DCCC not to get involved, said chairperson Rep. Suzanne DelBene of Washington, in a recent interview with CBS’ Face the Nation. “We have always been clear that we only weigh in on primaries when we feel that one candidate stands out as the strongest possible nominee to ensure that we win in the general election.”

A spokesperson for the DCCC declined to make DelBene available for an interview with CalMatters.

Villegas’s campaign, meanwhile, has leveraged the interference from national Democrats as further proof that party elites have lost touch with everyday working people and will use insider connections to keep establishment-friendly candidates in power.

“What the establishment is doing right now is a clear signal that they don’t believe that my opponent could win this race outright on her own, which is why they’re trying to swoop in at the last minute to try and save her,” Villegas told CalMatters in an interview.

Some Democrats Feel Betrayed

Jesse Aguilar, a Villegas supporter and member of the California Teachers Association’s board of directors, said he felt “betrayed” by what he felt was the national party intervening rather than letting the constituents of the 22nd Congressional District decide for themselves who they want to see in the general election. CTA has endorsed Villegas.

The California Democratic Party, which has no direct link to the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, did not endorse a 22nd District candidate at its February convention.

Both candidates are neck-and-neck in fundraising, with Bains reporting about $700,000 on hand and Villegas with $718,000, according to the latest federal filings. Villegas vows to reject corporate PAC money and says he has managed to outfundraise Bains in multiple quarters through grassroots donations. His recent major funders include the Jane Fonda Climate PAC and the Latino Victory Fund.

Some of Bains’ biggest recent funders are groups that represent health professionals, such as an anesthesiologists PAC and an OB-GYN PAC. She also has received money from unions such as the State Building and Construction Trades Council and the California carpenters, as well as several California elected officials.

Bains and Villegas have each been endorsed by the editorial boards of the district’s remaining newspapers, The Fresno Bee and the Bakersfield Californian.

The advertising is also becoming nasty.

The progressive Working Families Party has spent $150,000 on digital ads that portray Bains as a corporate shill who takes money from some of the same wealthy donors who fund Valadao’s campaign.

“Bains took big money from Big Pharma and healthcare corporations, thousands from corporate polluters, and failed to show up to vote to extend our health care,” proclaims one ad paid for by the Working Families Party PAC.

Bains’s campaign declined to make the assemblymember available for an interview. In a statement from the campaign, she said she had “earned the trust of Valley families by delivering results” and that she had “deep support from people here who know and trust my record.”

Pro-Israel Group Launches Attack on Villegas

One group supporting Bains, the Democratic Majority for Israel, whose views are aligned with AIPAC, launched $500,000 in ads against Villegas claiming he voted to cover up child sexual abuse as a Visalia School Board trustee, a talking point that Bains’ campaign encouraged outside spenders to highlight. The ad cites a Los Angeles Times investigation that uncovered more than 750 lawsuits, and settlements resulting from a state law that expanded eligibility for victims of sexual abuse in schools to be able to sue their districts.

The topic of Israel has become a litmus test in California and across the country, as progressive candidates such as Villegas seek to distance themselves from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and affiliated groups. Villegas vows to vote against sending additional weapons or military aid to Israel should he be elected. Bains, who is endorsed by the Democratic Majority for Israel, appears to have privately called the situation in Gaza a “genocide,” but later walked back those comments in a statement to Politico.

“I approach the word genocide with care, and I don’t believe it applies to Israel,” she told Politico.

Villegas called the ads “disgusting and pathetic” and accused Bains’ supporters of exploiting victims’ pain, trauma and suffering for political gain. He emphasized that he supports a survivor’s right to seek redress, and he noted that sensitive legal matters such as settlements in sexual abuse cases would never be discussed or debated in open session at a school board meeting.

“Nothing in these settlement agreements prevents these individuals from speaking out and sharing their stories,” Villegas said. “These settlements actually allow these individuals and their families to have justice on their own terms, and I will continue to fight every single day for all of our students.”

Republicans Try to Boost Villegas’ Name ID

National Republicans have also taken to meddling in battleground districts in the hopes of boosting more progressive candidates who they view as less electable. Federal filings show the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super PAC aligned with House Republican leadership, has poured close to $72,000 into mailers attacking Villegas as “a left-wing progressive” who is “too extreme for the Central Valley.”

The tactic, used frequently by both parties, is meant to increase the candidate’s name ID, even through negative advertisements, in the hopes of riling up and turning out progressive Democrats and Villegas supporters.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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