How Do You Beat a Central Valley Republican?
California’s 22nd Congressional District was once a vaguely circular-shaped chunk at the southern end of the Central Valley, where much of the country’s food is grown. Now, after California voters approved Prop 50, which redrew the state’s congressional maps, its shape has changed physically and politically, stretching farther north and getting a little more Democratic.
The district still includes Bakersfield, still extends to the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills, and is still majority Latino. But the new district includes some Democratic-leaning areas in Fresno County, and lost Republican-leaning areas like Hanford, Porterville, and Tulare.
It’s now one of five districts that Democrats think they can flip in 2026.
The race in the 22nd is one of California’s most contentious ahead of the June 2nd primary election. Voters will choose between re-electing incumbent Republican David Valadao, who has held the seat since 2013 (except for one term from 2019 to 2021), conservative “Valleycrat” Jasmeet Bains, or populist Randy Villegas.
Bains and Villegas represent two opposing approaches that Democrats across the country have articulated as the key to beating Republicans. Bains is running a more conservative campaign—what some, including Villegas, have called “Republican Lite.” Villegas, on the other hand, is running to the left and has been endorsed by progressive leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).
At the heart of the debate is whether it’s more important to moderate views and reach independents, or to increase base turnout and appeal to voters looking for solutions to their economic problems rather than incrementalism. The socioeconomic circumstances of the district and the stark differences between the candidates make this race an extreme example of this choice.
At the state party convention in February, neither Bains nor Villegas received an official endorsement, which Villegas’s campaign views as a success.
The district is deeply working-class, with strong roots in the agricultural and the oil industries. The cost of health care has become a major issue in the community, particularly after the Trump administration’s cuts to Medicaid in 2025. Incumbent Valadao promised not to cut health care but then voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act regardless; the bill is estimated to cut Medicaid by $911 billion over ten years.
Villegas is a staunch proponent of Medicare for All, but Bains, a current assemblywoman and physician, has flip-flopped on the issue. Her campaign compiled opposition research against Villegas, noting his support for Medicare for All and warning that “it would be paid for by raising taxes on working Americans.” This opposition research was included in her campaign website’s red box, a section of the site that allows candidates to communicate with super PACs without breaking campaign finance laws. In the red box, her campaign urges advertisers to target Villegas over his support for the policy. The health care policy section of her website also makes no mention of Medicare for All.
But at an event with the Fresno County Young Democrats, The San Joaquin Valley Sun reported, Bains told the crowd: “I do support Medicare for All.” In a comment to the Sun, Bains’s campaign said that “Randy Villegas has endorsed socialist run healthcare which would dissolve Medicare, make employer-sponsored health insurance illegal, and double taxes. You cannot say you support Medicare for All if you want to destroy Medicare.”
Villegas told the Prospect why he thought Bains was changing her tune on Medicare for All depending on the audience.
“It’s clear that Assemblymember Bains is willing to change her answers or sell her answers to the highest bidder and the highest donor, and that she doesn’t actually stand for anything but whatever her corporate donors tell her to do,” he said. “Her flip-flopping on all these issues is disappointing, but it’s also not surprising from somebody who has failed to actually stand up for our communities in Sacramento.”
In the State Assembly, Bains has a record of abstaining or not showing up for votes on health- and pollution-related bills. She did not vote on a 2024 bill to extend authorities of the state health care exchange, which was supported by the rest of the Democratic caucus. She did not vote on a bill to expand paid sick leave for workers. She did not vote on a bill to establish a commission on the creation of a single-payer health care system. She did not vote on a bill to monitor air pollution. (The latter was vetoed by Gov. Newsom, who claimed it was redundant and did not provide funding for implementation.)
In a statement to the Prospect, the Bains campaign said: “No one in this race has a stronger record on health care than Dr. Jasmeet Bains. As a family physician, she’s spent her career on the frontlines caring for Valley families and fighting to expand access to affordable care for working people. Patients and providers alike trust her to have their backs—that’s why the largest health care union in the state endorsed her on day one.” Bains has been endorsed by several health-related unions, including the National Union of Healthcare Workers and four SEIU affiliates.
Bains’s flip-flop on Medicare for All isn’t her only inconsistency. Also in a meeting with the Fresno County Young Democrats, Bains said that she believes Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza. Bains, who is endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel, walked her comments back in a statement to Politico, saying that she had misunderstood the question. “I approach the word genocide with care, and I don’t believe it applies to Israel,” she said.
In her political career so far, Bains has received over $800,000 in supportive spending from pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and the for-profit health care industry. As the Prospect reported last fall, Bains and Valadao have received direct contributions or corporate PAC donations from the same 53 corporations, including pharma companies Bayer, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson, and other corporations like Amazon, ExxonMobil, and Chevron.
Meanwhile, as Villegas told the Prospect, many constituents in the 22nd District can’t afford health care and make the seven-hour drive down to Tijuana to receive dental care or purchase medications.
So far, the race is neck and neck. At the state party convention in February, neither Bains nor Villegas received an official endorsement, which Villegas’s campaign views as a success.
“It is a huge win that we were able to block an endorsement of a sitting Assemblywoman,” said Melissa Herrera, Villegas’s campaign manager.
Valadao remains way out ahead of both Democrats in fundraising. Bains and Villegas are roughly matched, with Bains less than $20,000 behind Villegas.
Villegas is hopeful that his progressive populism will win out over Bains’s corporate-backed centrism on June 2, and that he can ride that momentum to a win in November. Since California has a “jungle primary” system, the top two primary candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party. Valadao will almost certainly win one of those spots; the real question now is whether he’ll face Bains or Villegas in November.
“At this point, we’re running the same old playbook again and again,” Herrera said about Bains’s campaign. “We’ve seen it not work the last two cycles.”
The only person who was able to unseat Valadao since he took office in 2013 was Democrat TJ Cox, who beat Valadao in 2018 and represented the district from 2019 to 2021. Though Valadao reclaimed the seat from Cox in 2020 and has held it ever since, Villegas sees Cox’s 2018 win as a sign that the district is hungry for someone who will run unabashedly to the left of Valadao.
“On paper, this is a seat that should have been Democratic a decade ago,” said Villegas, who, if he wins in November, would be the first Latino to represent the Central Valley in Congress. “When you offer voters ‘Republican’ and ‘Republican Lite,’ they’re going to go for the Republican. We need to be able to offer something more.”
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