Issa tried to adapt, finally relented
The nine-term incumbent departs as his district becomes more liberal.
— In contrast to most of his California GOP colleagues, Rep. Darrell Issa showed a willingness to moderate his stances to placate invigorated Democrats, but perhaps found it wasn’t enough to offset his reputation as a conservative bulldog in an increasingly liberal district.
The Vista congressman, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, won reelection in 2016 by just over half a percent — about 1,600 votes — and was widely considered the most vulnerable Republican in the House going into this year’s election. In Issa’s northern San Diego and southern Orange County district, nearly 38% of registered voters are Republicans, with 31% registered as Democrats and 26% not registered with any political party, who often lean Democratic at the polls in California.
Still, his announcement Wednesday that he would not run again came as a surprise. A source close to Issa said he was talking about his reelection campaign with friends as recently as Tuesday night. Issa’s statement on Wednesday did not say why he decided to retire, just that he had the support of family in making the decision.
The richest man in Congress, Issa, 64, already had drawn a handful of wellfunded Democratic opponents, including his 2016 challenger, Doug Applegate, Orange County environmental lawyer Mike Levin, San Diego real estate investor Paul Kerr and Sara Jacobs, who has been endorsed by Emily’s List. Issa had $852,028 in cash on hand as of September. Levin has led Democrats in fundraising with $530,326 in the bank. Applegate and Kerr each had a bit more than $200,000.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Issa’s retirement “means we are in a strong position to elect a Democrat to the 49th District this fall.”
But the National Republican Congressional Committee said Democrats are setting themselves up for an internal fight in Issa’s 49th District, adding, “We look forward to facing whoever limps out of the Democrats’ battle royale: black and blue, and broke.”
Hours after Issa’s announcement, GOP state Assemblyman Rocky Chavez of Oceanside announced he would run for the seat. Other Republicans who could run in Issa’s place include Diane Harkey, chair of the state Board of Equalization and a former assemblywoman, and GOP Senate leader Pat Bates. All three represent significant portions of Issa’s district.
Analysts for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics quickly changed their appraisal of the race from a toss-up to the “leans Democratic” category, saying Issa’s close 2016 win showed voters may be more willing to consider a Democrat.
The 39th District — which will also be an openseat race — remains a tossup because the departing representative there, Republican Ed Royce, won by 15 percentage points in 2016, Crystal Ball managing editor Kyle Kondik said. At least one other prognosticator moved Royce’s district to “leans Democratic” as soon as he announced his retirement on Monday.
As chairman of the committee charged with overseeing the executive branch, Issa was known as President Obama’s toughest critic because of his aggressive pursuit of alleged fraud and abuse by the administration. It made him a hero in conservative circles, and before his narrow 2016 win, Issa had gotten at least 58% of the vote in his eight previous campaigns.
But Issa walked a shakier line with the new administration. He appeared to moderate some of his rhetoric last year. Though he insisted he had not changed, he was more willing to buck his party on important votes. He voted against the tax bill in December, saying it would harm his constituents.
For a year, hundreds of activists have appeared weekly outside Issa’s Vista office to protest. At first, Issa regularly engaged with them on the street and in town halls, but his frustrations with the ongoing protests grew and he stopped talking with the participants.
On Tuesday, activists with a local Indivisible group huddled under umbrellas outside Issa’s office for a premature “retirement party” for the congressman, complete with festive signs and a cake shaped like a Hawaiian shirt. The song they sang seem ominous in retrospect: “Issa, you’ll retire, your situation’s dire, we will soon replace you, never fear. Now we must report, now your time is short, Issa you’ll retire this year.”
Born in Cleveland as the second of six children in a Lebanese American family, Issa dropped out of high school at 17 to join the Army. While there, he got his GED high school equivalency certificate and went on to earn degrees from Kent State University and Siena Heights University before returning to the Army as an officer.
Issa bought a struggling Cleveland electronics busiWASHINGTON ness in 1980 and within a decade transformed it to produce the popular Viper automobile anti-theft device, with Issa’s famous voice as the warning to would-be thieves to “stand back.”
In 1986, he and his wife, Kathy, moved the business to Vista, where it continued to grow. His net worth was estimated at more than quarter of a billion dollars in 2015, according to financial disclosures.
Issa’s first foray as a candidate came in 1998 when he spent $9.8 million in the Republican primary for the chance to challenge Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat, but he lost to Matt Fong.
He was elected to the House in 2000 with 61% of the vote, and three years later, he spent $1.7 million to get signatures for the recall election of then-Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. He had hoped to replace Davis himself, but abruptly quit during a tearful news conference when Arnold Schwarzenegger entered the race, saying he had been assured a quality candidate was running.