DEMOCRATS SPAR OVER CENTRAL VALLEY TIES
The primary race to unseat Republican Denham in key seat has been driven by questions of which candidate has the most authentic connection to the community
PATTERSON >> When Josh Harder took his campaign for Congress to a house party in the Central Valley town of cul-de-sacs and mountain views of Patterson last week, the dozen Democrats in the living room quizzed him on the typical hot-button issues, from health care to gun control.
Then they got down to business: What high school did you go to? What sports did you play? Did you have classes with my son?
In this key congressional district just over the Diablo Range from the Bay Area, there aren’t many policy issues on which the half-dozen Democrats running in next week’s primary disagree. So the race has instead been driven by questions of whose Valley roots go deeper, and who has the most authentic connection to a community that’s seen increasing numbers of newcomers priced out of the Bay Area.
The bevy of candidates in the 10th district are fighting for the chance to take on Rep. Jeff Denham, a Republican whose 3.4 percent margin of victory in 2016 was one of the closest House races in the country. Hillary Clinton won the district that year, making it a top target for national Democrats in 2018.
Meanwhile, the sheer number of Democratic hopefuls also raises the slim possibility that they could split the primary vote and shut the party out of the general election, a major concern in several other districts in Southern California as Democrats try to regain control of the House.
Harder, whose fundraising haul is four times as big as the next Democratic candidate’s, starts his stump speeches with a story about his greatgreat-grandfather, who came to California to find gold and settled in the Valley to grow peaches. His campaign signs declare that he’s “of the valley, for the valley.”
But that only goes so far. Despite the fact that he was born in and grew up in Turlock, Harder’s rivals are attacking him as a carpetbagger and Bay Area outsider. He left the Valley to attend Stanford and Harvard before working as a venture capital investor in San Francisco, only moving back last year to run for office; a sterling resume that’s a liability among some locals.
“Everything I have is because this community invested in me, and I’m running because I want to invest back in that same community,” said Harder, a clean-cut 31-year-old who’d be the youngest current member of Congress if elected.
He’s not the only candidate facing questions about how salt-of-the-earth they really are. Michael Eggman, a folksy beekeeper who is running for a third time after coming up short against Denham in 2014 and 2016, was dinged by the Modesto Bee for describing himself as a “farmer” in campaign literature even though he sold his almond groves last year.
“People come here and they stay. Just like these almond trees, they have deep roots,” said Eggman in an
interview in an orchard in Ceres, where he was tending to several thousand bees pollinating nearby fields. “Us being so close to the Bay Area, people around here have a particularly big chip on their shoulders about Bay Area elites influencing our community and who represents us.”
Denham’s signs prominently declare him a “local farmer,” although he moved to the district a decade ago from Salinas and no longer farms the land he owns.
“I call myself a farmer because it’s a way of life,” Denham said, bashing Harder as a candidate “from San Francisco.”
The focus on local ties is a product of voters’ unhappiness with how the area is treated by political outsiders, said Jess Self, the president of the Central Valley Democratic Club in Modesto.
“The Central Valley gets overlooked constantly by state and national politicians,” she said. “So the idea that you understand the uniqueness of the Valley, that you’re going to come back and represent the community, that matters here.”
Whichever Democrat makes it through the primary is hoping to make inroads by hammering on high-profile votes Denham made last year to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to support the GOP tax bill.
His health care vote is an especially big target, as the plan — which failed to pass the Senate — would have led to almost 50,000 district residents losing health coverage, according to an analysis of Congressional Budget Office data by the liberal Center for American Progress.
Several of the Democrats, including Virginia Madueño, the former mayor of small-town Riverbank, and Sue Zwahlen, a nurse and school board member, jumped in the race specifically because of Denham’s Obamacare vote.
“He voted to repeal a piece of legislation that helped literally millions of people,” said Madueño, whose campaign has been boosted by an endorsement of the national women’s group EMILY’s List.
But Denham is hoping to outflank his rivals on another key issue in the Valley: Immigration. The fourterm congressman is leading an effort to override the Republican leadership in the House and force a vote on a bill that would protect young undocumented immigrants. He said he’s gathered enough signatures on a “discharge petition” mandating a vote on a series of immigration bills, and he wants to guarantee a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers while also funding border security.
“I’m willing to stand up
to my party on something that I think is critical for our country,” said Denham, who speaks Spanish and is married to the daughter of a Mexican immigrant. “Both parties have used this as a political wedge issue. I’m not willing to sit on the sidelines.”
His Democratic rivals cast the effort as a cynical political stunt timed to boost his re-election chances in a district that’s 43 percent Latino. They point out that in 2014, during the last big debate about comprehensive immigration reform, Denham declined to sign a petition to force a vote even though he professed to support a bipartisan bill. And overall, Denham is a close ally of President Donald Trump. An analysis by the news website FiveThirtyEight found that he voted in line with Trump’s position on 97.4 percent of bills.
There’s also a chance that Democrats could get shut out after the top-two primary, although that’s seen as less likely than in several other Southern California districts. If the six Democrats on the ballot (one of whom has dropped out) split the vote, they could allow Denham and another Republican in the running, Ted Howze, to grab the top two spots.
Howze — pronounced “Hows” — a veterinarian and former Turlock council
member, has run to Denham’s right on immigration while also criticizing him on the tax bill and health care vote. The men used to be friends, but Howze now rebukes him for supporting “amnesty.”
“He doesn’t do anything for the district,” Howze said. “All we get out of him every two years is glossy flyers and fundraising requests.”
The amnesty attack could find traction in some Republican circles, predicted Jim DeMartini, the Stanislaus County GOP chairman.
“The base doesn’t like it,” he said of Denham’s immigration reform advocacy, although he added that Denham is popular overall among party voters.
Even as the candidates focus on their agricultural credentials and Valley bona fides, the district is changing. More people are moving in from the Bay Area, pushed out by sky-high housing prices. Around towns such as Tracy and Manteca, farmland is disappearing under housing developments, where workers throw up frames of new homes, and billboards for congressional candidates stand side-by-side with signs advertising cheap land.
The attacks on Harder don’t resonate as well with the newcomers and the many locals who have close Bay Area ties. Julian Bentayeb, a retired programmer who lives in Newman, voted for Denham for state Senate a decade ago, and he used to listen to Denham’s appearances on talk radio during his grueling twohour commute to a programming job in San Jose.
Now, the 65-year-old Bentayeb thinks Denham has become “the mirror image of Trump,” and he’s knocked on more than 1,000 doors as a volunteer for Harder’s campaign. He said he likes Harder’s “youthful energy.”
Still, there are plenty of other voters, such as Elizabeth Camp, a 75-year-old retiree from Ceres, who in some ways seems like an ideal target for the congressman’s rivals. She’s struggling to get by, she’s unhappy with Trump, and her insurance doesn’t cover health procedures she needs, including two new hips.
But she enthusiastically voted for Denham this month after he showed up at the funeral of her husband, an Air Force and Navy veteran who died in March.
“He said if there was anything I needed, I should let him know,” Camp said, standing on her front lawn on a hot day. “He really cares about the local community.”