Centrist could be model in 2022
Central Valley Dem might help turn areas blue
WASHINGTON — Central Valley Rep. Josh Harder pulled off an upset to defeat a Republican in the 2018 election, but in 2020 he did something more impressive: He won again.
Harder was one of only a handful of swingseat Democrats to survive last year’s elections, which ended with a sharply reduced House majority for the party.
Harder, 34, and those who know him credit his success to focusing on issues that matter to his district and efforts at bipartisanship. Democrats hope he can serve as a model for their candidates in next year’s midterms, which historically are rough for the president’s party.
But Harder also benefited last year from a weak Republican challenger in his first reelection campaign, raising questions about whether his success can be repeated, by him or by colleagues.
Harder brushes aside Democrats’ internal debate over whether the best political strategy is to tack moderate or go big on progressive goals while they can.
“Ultimately, over the next two years, people are going to judge us not by, ‘Were there progressive wins, were there moderate wins, who had the
best dunk on Twitter?’ ” the Turlock (Stanislaus County) Democrat said in an interview. “People are going to judge us by whether or not their lives are getting better over the next few years. And if they don’t, then we’re going to lose big in 2022, and we’re going to deserve it.”
Since arriving in Congress, Harder has kept a relatively low profile. In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Harder felt it necessary to remind the internet that he is not Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who cheered the proTrump protesters who later invaded the Capitol. Harder said he received hateful messages intended for Hawley.
Harder’s issues aren’t necessarily the kind that will resonate beyond his 10th Congressional District. He carried a bill dealing with the nutria, a large invasive rodent plaguing Central Valley waterways, and displayed a taxidermied swamp rat on the House floor to raise support.
He also brought home money for water projects for the Central Valley, sometimes working with San Rafael Rep. Jared Huffman, a progressive who often clashes even with inland Democrats on issues pitting water storage versus the environment. Huffman praised Harder as “smart and pragmatic,” with an instinct for finding common ground.
Harder’s office calculates that he has the highest percentage of bills with bipartisan backing of any member of Congress, at 90%. The independent GovTrack ranked him 16th among firstterm House lawmakers in getting members of the other party to sign on to his bills.
One of the Republicans Harder has worked with is Texas Rep. Van Taylor — they have cosponsored each other’s bills and are both members of the House’s Problem Solvers Caucus, which brands itself as centrist.
“He’s committed to solutions,” Taylor said. “He’s very focused, very disciplined, very scheduled and just works very hard. And you see that when you catch him — and I do catch him occasionally — he’s always in between things.”
Harder defeated Republican Rep. Jeff Denham in 2018 after a campaign built on grassroots mobilizing. Harder’s family goes back five generations in his district, and he graduated from Modesto High School before going on to Stanford, Harvard Business School and a stint in venture capital in Menlo Park. He bolstered his local roots with an army of volunteers and donors from the Bay Area and beyond, which helped him develop a strong ground game. Combined with the antiDonald Trump wave across the country, Harder pulled off the upset.
In 2020, however, the coronavirus pandemic forced Harder to rethink how to reach voters in his largely rural district. He turned to a mix of technology and innovation, holding phonein and drivein town halls, Facebook lives and drivethrough office hours.
“We built up the record of independent, local, effective leadership that people are hungering for, and then we had to find a way to get that message out and communicate with folks,” Harder said.
To mimic the sense of community fostered by inperson campaigning, Harder arranged Zoom sessions by locality so volunteers were grouped with neighbors.
“A lot of campaigns just eschewed inperson organizing, and I think that was a mistake,” Harder said.
He was also gifted with a weak Republican opponent, Ted Howze, a Turlock veterinarian who turned out to have a history of bigoted social media posts against Muslims and immigrants. Harder carried the district by a wider margin than Joe Biden’s victory there over Trump.
Meredith Kelly, who has worked in communications with House Democrats’ campaign committee, said Harder recognized that what lawmakers do in the years between elections matters as much as the year they’re on the ballot.
“He certainly built up a big war chest,” Kelly said, and “focused on ... getting local clips and citations to document the service he was providing his constituents.”
As for the “fatally flawed” candidate against him, Kelly said some of that was a credit to Harder’s fundraising and constituent work.
“It makes (Republican) recruitment hard, which leads you directly to Ted Howze,” Kelly said.
The question for Harder is whether he can repeat in 2022. The president’s party historically loses House seats in the midterms, and Harder is already on the list of top targets for Republicans.
Thomas Holyoke, a political science professor at Fresno State, said successful Central Valley politicians focus on local issues like water, immigration, environmental quality and housing rather than national topics that move voters in some other swing districts.
Stephen Routh, a political science professor at Cal State Stanislaus, said Harder benefited last year from a common bounce for incumbents, but that he built on that advantage by working his district.
“Harder has been very adept, very skilled and very sharp in coming home consistently and communicating with the voters and building a high level of trust,” Routh said.
Harder said he will continue to focus on reaching out to House Republicans, although perhaps not those who voted against recognizing Biden’s victory after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“We want a responsible Republican Party,” Harder said. “The question is, how do we go from here and how do we really strengthen the voice of Republicans who we may have disagreement with on the issues but are at least committed to the ideals of democracy?”
With a razorthin majority for Democrats in Congress, bipartisan cooperation will be necessary to get virtually anything to Biden’s desk. That gives centrists such as Harder outsized power.
“The worst thing that can happen is going through the next two years with most Americans feeling like there wasn’t an impact on their daily lives,” Harder said. “That would be a disaster.”