On election night 2016, political activist Jess Self wasn’t in much of a partying mood. She’d just spent four days knocking on doors in neighboring Nevada. Her efforts helped elect a Democratic U.S. senator and representative and pass two controversial ballot measures.
But Donald Trump’s victory spoiled any sense of a job well done, and she skipped the Las Vegas celebrations. “It was a rough night,” recalls Self, 36, a public defender in Modesto, a city about 90 minutes east of San Francisco. “It was one of the biggest shocks of my life.”
She returned home the next day and regrouped. Then she started making calls. Self, president of the Central Valley Democratic Club, helped fire up Democrats and channel their anger into a political operation. This year, they are setting their sights on knocking off four-term Republican representative Jeff Denham. They’ve had record attendance at their meetings, the phone banks are packed, and 50 to 80 volunteers knock on doors every Saturday to spread the word. The election isn’t for eight months. “I have never, never seen anything like this,” Self reports.
Democrats nationwide are banking on such grassroots enthusiasm to win back the House in November. To succeed, they need a particularly strong showing in the few parts of California they don’t already dominate.
“It’s kind of amazing: Democrats control 39 of the 53 seats in California, and yet, in order to take the House back, they will probably have to win even more,” says Kyle Kondik, who analyzes congressional elections for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. The biggest battlegrounds are in seven districts held by Republicans in the Central Valley and the Los Angeles suburbs. By Kondik’s calculations, Democrats will have to flip five of them.
It’s not an impossible task: Hillary Clinton won all seven districts in 2016, and Republican incumbents in two of them are retiring. The California GOP, which once produced popular governors such as Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, hasn’t won a statewide race since 2006. The party is in decline in the state, with only 25 percent of registered voters identifying as Republican. Polls show residents view President Trump less favorably here than in almost any other state. Yet as the race to win in Modesto shows, the Democrats must overcome obstacles in California, too.
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California’s Central Valley lies between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Pacific. Modesto, the largest city in the 10th Congressional District, with a population of 200,000, is surrounded by almond orchards and industrial buildings connected to farming. Historical markers downtown pay tribute to the town’s most famous native son, filmmaker George Lucas, and to the cruising and drag-racing scene that he depicted in his 1973 hit American Graffiti.
While farming and food processing remain the major employers, Modesto has changed a lot in 45 years. Latinos now comprise 45 percent of the population. With lower housing prices, the area also attracts spillover from the high-priced Bay Area.
Clinton won here by 3 points in 2016, which offers Democrats hope in their quest to unseat Denham. The incumbent is a conventional Republican, who had a 16-year career in the Air Force and then started a plastics business. He voted with his party to replace Obamacare and to pass tax cuts—though he is softer on immigration issues than Trump and the party hardliners. The Los Angeles Times says Denham “has had the secret sauce to keep his constituents happy even as Democrats have salivated to flip a district seemingly so perfect for their party.” He beat beekeeper Michael Eggman by 3 points in 2016 and by 12 points in 2014.
Democrats are hoping to paint Denham, 50, as a Trump enabler. Asked about his support for the president, Denham says he is a “very independent thinker” who is focused on the district’s needs. “I’m not just going to go along to get along when it hurts my district,” he says. He points to his efforts to bring more water to the Central Valley—which a news release from his office calls a “social justice issue”—and his successful push to secure funding for training more local doctors.
Denham, who speaks Spanish, is already running ads on Spanish-language radio stations to keep his name in front of that crucial constituency. In 2016, internal polling indicated he would earn nearly half of the Latino vote, a figure far higher than for most Republicans.
There remains a deep well of conservatism in the Central Valley. Ratings for the radio shows of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are strong. A Lincoln Day dinner address by Ann Coulter last April brought out 600 guests who paid $125 and up. Business leaders cast blame on Sacramento Democrats, not Washington Republicans, for the area’s woes. Poverty and unemployment are higher than national averages, yet Democrats in charge of state government pile on regulations and taxes that hamper business.
“We never recovered from the recession in the valley, and the Democrats don’t care,” says Cecil Russell, CEO of the Modesto Chamber of Commerce. “Sacramento taxes the hell out of you every chance they get.” Asked if business owners support Denham, Russell pauses, cocks his head to the side, and replies, “Any of us with a brain do.”
Another advantage Denham enjoys is that Democrats have yet to settle on a challenger. With so many Democrats running, the strongest candidates could split the votes in the June 5 primary and allow a weaker candidate through to the general election. There are at least eight declared challengers—including two nurses, a venture capitalist, an ex-congressional aide, a retired computer programmer, a former small-town mayor, and the owner of an organic nut-processing plant.
In January, Eggman, the beekeeper who lost twice to Denham, reversed a pledge not to run and announced his candidacy, too. Democrats in the district say there are rumors that Eggman flip-flopped at the behest of wealthy and powerful political action committees, which were unnerved at the prospect of a little-known competitor facing off against Denham. Eggman didn’t reply to a request for comment. But his entry into the race enraged some local Democrats, who teed off on his Facebook page: “You’re just here to screw up what was a good race.” “Way to split the party and give Denham another win. Good job!” “I am so angry that you think you can sashay in at this late date and do anything BUT throw a monkey wrench into the hard grassroots labors of candidates who take this seriously.”
The candidates, minus Eggman, held three debates across the district between September and January. The Modesto Bee described the third debate, held before a sell-out crowd of nearly 500 in the downtown Gallo Center for the Arts, as filled with “Denham venom.” Candidates voiced support for a new federal equal-rights amendment, zero government limits on abortion, and civil-rights protections for people who identify as transgender—positions that might excite the base but would be less popular with socially conservative farmworkers and independent voters.
In a Democratic party caucus in late January, candidates Josh Harder and T.J. Cox led the field. Harder, a 31-year-old venture capitalist in San Francisco, took a leave from his job and moved back to the district just last spring to make his first run for office. Cox, 53, ran for Congress in 2006 and is the founder of a community development fund—and owner of the nut processing plant—but he moved to the district from Fresno only last summer.
Denham holds a big lead in fundraising and can add to it while the Democrats are spending money fighting each other. He had raised nearly $2 million through the end of December, more than twice as much as a typical House incumbent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Aided by an influx of cash from tech and finance executives, Harder led Democrats with $923,000. Cox had raised $407,000.
Self, the president of the local Democratic club, predicts Democrats will set aside any differences once they have a nominee in June. The work they are doing now—holding mock funeral processions in front of Denham’s office to protest his healthcare vote, knocking on doors, making calls—is laying the groundwork for the fall campaign, she thinks. Her group is trying to educate voters about the Democratic vision to improve health care and schools and to provide affordable housing. “The partisanship here is toned down compared to other areas,” she says. “It’s not going to help just to say, ‘Trump sucks.’ ”
Part of the challenge is appealing to voters such as Cesar Lopez, 42, a Modesto plumber who was sitting in a rare patch of sun downtown one recent morning. Lopez says he voted for a third-party candidate for president in 2016 and is undecided on this year’s congressional race. He says the plumbing business is good, and he just put an offer on his first house. He likes some things Trump is doing, especially after conversations with his father, a Trump supporter who believes the president is a “go-getter” who “doesn’t walk away” from challenges like North Korea.
“He wouldn’t hesitate to protect his country,” Lopez says. “We’d be in danger if Hillary had to deal with that. Not because she’s a woman, but because of her history.”
Down the street, Robert Leibold, 66, of neighboring Tuolumne County, said he and his wife, Dawn, believe the country has “gone downhill in the last year in a lot of ways.” They oppose the Republican tax cuts and efforts to remove people who came to the United States illegally as children and worry that Trump’s rhetoric is making it acceptable “to be a bigot now.”
Leibold, who votes consistently for Democrats, says they might see some victories this year. Jess Self, though, is sure Democratic enthusiasm will deliver: “We’re going to win this seat. It’s going to happen.”
Tony Mecia is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
