Another Democrat eyes Central Valley district
Engineer TJ Cox is the seventh to enter race against Republican Rep. Jeff Denham.
WASHINGTON — Democratic engineer TJ Cox will challenge Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) in the 10th Congressional District, making him the seventh Democrat to sign up to oppose Denham.
Cox, 53, has already run for Congress in the area. In 2006, he lost to Rep. George Radanovich with 39.4% of the vote in what was then the 19th Congressional District. Denham succeeded Radanovich in 2011, and the district boundaries have since been redrawn.
Cox said the same “excesses and outrages” that motivated him to run in 2006 are spurring him to run again, and with more voters registering as Democrats or with no party preference, he thinks the odds are better that a Democrat could win the district.
“I have to; I feel like we have to,” he said. “It’s the duty of every American who cares about this country and about our values to stand up and do something.”
Cox has an engineering degree from the University of Nevada and a master’s in business administration from Southern Methodist University. Born in California but raised in Nevada and New Mexico, Cox moved to Fresno with his family in 2000, where he’s been registered to vote since 2003. He said on Wednesday he’ll soon be moving his family to a Modesto home that is within the congressional district. He registered to vote at that home June 12.
Cox in 2011 founded Central Valley NMTC Fund, an organization that invests millions in public and private funds in economically disadvantaged Central Valley communities. The group’s projects include building community health clinics, agricultural education programs and the North Fork Bioenergy Plant, according to his campaign. He also owns an organic nut processing plant in Madera.
The district includes all of Stanislaus County and the southern third of San Joaquin County, and includes Modesto, Tracy and Turlock. It’s dependent on the agricultural industry and is among the poorest areas of the country.
Denham won reelection by less than 5 percentage points in 2016 after Democrats sought to tie him to now-President Trump, who lost the district. Democrats are aiming for him again.
Cox indicated he plans to pursue a similar strategy in 2018, saying Denham is “complicit” in Trump’s policies, especially because he supported the GOP healthcare bill, which would potentially reduce the number of people who qualify for MediCal.
“He’s an unabashed shoe shiner for Trump,” Cox said.
Cox said he wants to focus on healthcare, job creation and infrastructure, such as the high-speed rail project that Denham opposes.
“Most of our tax dollars, they go to Washington and they don’t come back,” Cox said. “We need more support from the federal government, at least our fair share of dollars coming back.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee responded to Cox’s candidacy by saying he and the rest of the Democrats in the race will battle “it out in a bloody race to the left.”
“TJ Cox may not even live in the district he’s running in, but we can assume he will fall in line with Nancy Pelosi’s single-payer, tax-hiking liberal policies,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Jack Pandol said.