Jasmeet Bains, left, and Claribell Gutierrez canvass for Bains in the neighborhood where Bains grew up in Delano, Calif., on May 16, 2026.
Jenna Schoenefeld/For the S.F. Chronicle
Olivia Calderón, mayor of Arvin, center, speaks with volunteers canvassing for Randy Villegas at Smothermon Park in Arvin on May 16, 2026.
Jenna Schoenefeld/For the S.F. Chronicle
Like Captain Ahab with his white whale, Democrats have spent years chasing Rep. David Valadao.
Election after election for more than a decade, the Bakersfield Republican has defied the political odds to hold onto a Democratic-leaning House district in the southern Central Valley. Even when a Democrat finally ousted him in 2018, in an 826-vote squeaker, Valadao returned two years later to reclaim his seat in Congress.
Now, with President Donald Trump’s unpopularity dragging down the GOP across the country, Valadao appears more vulnerable than ever — and Democrats are locked in a testy dispute over the best way to beat him, which has spilled into the final weeks of the primary campaign.
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It reflects a debate playing out nationally in a party still uncertain about how to move forward from its bruising losses in the Trump era.
Volunteers prepare to canvass for Jasmeet Bains in Bakersfield on May 16, 2026.
Jenna Schoenefeld/For the S.F. Chronicle
The Democratic establishment senses opportunity with Assembly Member Jasmeet Bains, 40, whose background as a family physician offers a compelling contrast to Valadao’s vote last summer to cut access to Medicaid, the healthcare program for low-income and disabled Americans. More Medicaid enrollees live in this agricultural, predominantly Latino district than almost anywhere else in the country.
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“She is a doctor in the world where Valadao took medical care away from a whole lot of people,” said Robin Fernandez, who is involved with Democratic organizations in Kern County and backs Bains. “She is a candidate who comes into this with a white coat.”
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But national intervention into the race earlier this month — when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which previously pledged neutrality, unexpectedly endorsed Bains — has roiled local Democrats.
Maria Pantoja, 16, center, and Elisa Lopez, 15, right, talk to a community member while canvassing for Randy Villegas in Arvin, Calif., on May 16, 2026.
Jenna Schoenefeld/For the S.F. Chronicle
Many are fired up about Randy Villegas, a 31-year-old community college political science professor who is running on an unabashedly progressive agenda of getting money out of politics, ending wars and providing universal healthcare. His candidacy tapped into a burning anger with the political system that is elevating populist outsiders across the country, earning the endorsements of progressive icons Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“People are tired of the status quo and they’re looking for new people,” said Josh Evans, an activist with the Democratic Party in Tulare County who said he appreciated Villegas for showing up to neglected communities to earn their support.
Evans said he was shocked when the DCCC, the campaign arm of House Democrats, got involved, ignoring voices from the district to boost its preferred candidate.
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“It’s embarrassing to see that they are not paying attention to what the voters are saying,” he said.
It could make a difference in a close race. With only three candidates running in the open June 2 primary, Valadao is practically guaranteed to advance to the November runoff against either Bains or Villegas, who nearly match each other in fundraising and limited public polling.
The GOP has delighted over the feud, with the National Republican Congressional Committee describing it in a statement as “watching two out of touch Democrats fight over who can push the far-left radical agenda harder.”
Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., speaks during a Congressional Hispanic Conference press conference in the U.S. Capitol on March 25, 2025.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag
Democrats don’t just want to beat Valadao. They must flip the district in order to have a path back to power in Congress next session.
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After Texas redrew its congressional map last summer to bolster Republicans, California overhauled its own lines to tilt up to five more districts to Democrats. The tweaks to Valadao’s 22nd Congressional District, which brought in a section of Fresno County, gave Democrats a 14-point voter registration advantage, slightly more than before.
But a recent Supreme Court decision turbocharged this national redistricting battle, giving Southern states the green light to break up districts drawn under the Voting Rights Act to elect nonwhite candidates. The GOP is racing to add more safely Republican seats before November to hold onto its historically slim House majority.
With few remaining avenues for Democrats to respond, the party needs swing districts like Valadao’s to take control. Though it looks like a good bet on paper, many Democrats and independent voters in the Central Valley lean conservative. The new seat would have narrowly favored Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Jasmeet Bains, left, talks with a resident in the neighborhood where Bains grew up while canvassing in Delano, Calif., on May 16, 2026.
Jenna Schoenefeld/For the S.F. Chronicle
So electability has become a central focus for Democrats in the primary: Who is best suited to defeat Valadao?
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In getting behind Bains, the DCCC has pointed to her personal narrative as a doctor, broad support from labor unions and law enforcement in the district, and a strong record in elected office. She outran Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris by nearly 9 percentage points in 2024.
A spokesperson for the committee declined to answer questions on the record about the strategy and timing of the endorsement. She shared a recent CBS News interview where Rep. Suzan DelBene, the Washington Democrat who chairs the DCCC, said the party only weighs in on primaries where it believes one candidate stands out as having the strongest chance in November.
“This election is too important to do anything else,” DelBene said. The endorsements are for “people who are uniquely positioned to win in their districts and are connected to their communities.”
That has infuriated progressives, who see in Villegas an anti-establishment figure who could energize the working class at a time when Democrats are losing ground with their traditional base, much like the Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner.
Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the party is ignoring that momentum at its peril. The caucus, which endorsed Villegas, publicly chastised the DCCC earlier this month for getting involved in the race. Casar said the strongest Democratic candidate to beat Valadao would be whoever emerged from a fair primary.
“In D.C. world, we sometimes have this conversation as if voters are making, like, a decision in a political science class. And that’s just not how this works,” Casar said. “This is the kind of district where a candidate that puts working-class issues first and isn’t a typical establishment candidate excites voters in a way that doesn’t fit in the neat little left-to-center spectrum.”
Some Democrats do fear Villegas might be too progressive for the district. Sensing an opportunity, a political action committee affiliated with House Republicans has begun sending out mailers that appear designed to boost him.
Fernandez said she was voting for Bains in part because she worries Villegas could be more easily attacked by Valadao as “the liberal extreme Democrat.”
“I always call Valadao the silver-tongued snake oil salesperson. And he does it very, very well,” she said. “The Republicans excel at that kind of propaganda and the Democrats buy it.”
Bains’ campaign did not make her available for an interview. Her strategy relies on pulling in disenchanted Valadao voters like Mario Nunez Jr., a retired police sergeant and member of the Delano City Council.
Nunez, who identifies as an independent, said he supported Valadao in the past because he delivered for the Central Valley and was not afraid to take on the Trump administration, but that changed with the vote to cut Medicaid access. While Nunez would still vote for Valadao over Villegas, whose platform he considers unrealistic, he is backing Bains.
“She’s voting right for the people, not what the party is asking her to,” Nunez said, pointing to her history of breaking with Democratic colleagues in the Legislature to support the oil industry, which is critically important to the Kern County economy.
But Villegas supporters dismiss the electability argument as overrated. Some believe the national party’s intervention is really more about favoring a candidate who would go along with, rather than challenge, congressional leadership.
Cathy Jorgensen, a Democratic official in Kings County, said the party is running the same unsuccessful playbook that it did with Rudy Salas, the moderate former Assembly member who lost to Valadao in 2022 and 2024. She could already imagine the Republican ads attacking Bains — who frequently abstains on bills she is not comfortable with — for skipping tough votes in the Legislature.
“If she gets the nomination, I will support her,” Jorgensen said. “But I have seen what the Republican machine does to people. And they will destroy her like they destroyed Rudy Salas.”
Villegas’ platform, fighting for things that people in the district want, actually makes him more electable, regardless of ideology, Jorgensen said. “I see people hungering for what he’s offering now.”
It’s a careful dance for Villegas, who referred to himself in an interview as a populist, rather than a progressive. He frequently contrasts himself with Bains by hitting her corporate campaign donors, which he said show that “her positions are up for sale to the highest bidder,” and her opposition to the measure that redrew the district.
“We can’t afford to trade one corrupt representative who sells out the Central Valley for another,” Villegas said. “It’s clear we need Democrats who are going to fight, not fold, against this administration.”
Villegas said it was a betrayal, but not a surprise, that the DCCC put its finger on the scale just as the primary ballots dropped. It shows a lack of confidence from the political establishment that Bains can win, he said, in a race that he characterized as a fight for the soul of the party between the working class and special interests.
“Voters on the ground in the district aren’t concerned with political labels. They’re concerned with who’s going to fight for them in D.C.,” Villegas said. “This is about us vs. them.”