Latest news with #Valadao
NBC News
4 days ago
- Politics
- NBC News
David Valadao battles backlash in his swing district after voting for Medicaid cuts that hit close to home
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — When Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., was knocked out of office in 2018, Democrats around the country were riding a wave of backlash against President Donald Trump and the GOP's attempts to cut health care. Now, after Valadao provided a critical vote for a sweeping tax cuts and spending package that slashed Medicaid and food stamps, Democrats see an opportunity for a repeat in California's Central Valley, where many low-income residents depend on social safety net programs. Valadao has already drawn at least two Democratic challengers in his battleground district, which will be key to Republicans' efforts to hang on to their narrow majority in next year's midterm elections. These include Jasmeet Bains, a doctor and member of the California state Assembly who officially jumped into the race last week. She told NBC News she was motivated by Valadao's support for the bill and plans to make health care a defining issue in the campaign against him. 'This isn't something that I ever envisioned for myself. I'm a doctor,' Bains said of her decision to run for Congress. 'When I saw Valadao vote for the 'big, beautiful bill,' I was shocked. As was everyone. How could you do that in a district that has some of the highest needs? Some of the highest Medicaid patients in the country?' Randy Villegas, a school board trustee who is affiliated with the Working Families Party, is also mounting a bid in the 22nd District. Even prior to his vote on the megabill, Valadao was seen as one of the more vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2026. After he lost in 2018, Valadao made a comeback bid and returned to Congress the following cycle. But his vote for Trump's bill could now put his swing seat even more at risk. Valadao's district has the highest share of Medicaid recipients and households receiving food stamps of any represented by a Republican in Congress, according to an NBC News analysis. In a preview of the attack ads to come, House Majority Forward, a nonprofit group aligned with Democratic leadership, and the League of Conservation Voters are launching new ads next week hitting Valadao over his support for the bill, according to a source familiar with the matter. The agriculturally rich region, which relies heavily on migrant farmworkers, is also bracing for mass deportations that some fear could disrupt the local economy and national food supply chains. Valadao has urged Trump to prioritize deporting criminals over undocumented laborers, but the administration has sent mixed signals about its approach. It all has the community here on edge. 'I'm definitely scared. I'm worried about it,' 53-year-old Rick Garcia, a local resident who relies on Medicaid after he was permanently paralyzed in his early 20s, told NBC News in an interview about the health care cuts. Valadao had repeatedly vowed to oppose the 'big, beautiful bill,' warning just several days before final passage that he couldn't support the Senate product. But he ended up supporting that version without any changes to the legislation. When asked how he felt about Valadao's vote, Garcia told NBC News: 'Betrayed.' 'If you're a politician and you're gonna say you're gonna do something, you're relying on that politician to do something about that problem,' Garcia said. 'Be a man of your word.' Republicans argue that only those they say don't deserve to be on Medicaid, like undocumented immigrants and able-bodied adults who don't work, will be kicked off the program. But Garcia said the state's Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, has already tried to remove him twice before, so he worries people could erroneously get swept up in all the new changes or will struggle to navigate the more frequent eligibility check-ins. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected Trump's new law will increase the number of people without health insurance by 10 million by 2034. Valadao's office said the congressman was not available for an interview for this story. In a statement after the House vote on the bill earlier this month, Valadao defended his decision. 'I voted for this bill because it does preserve the Medicaid program for its intended recipients — children, pregnant women, the disabled, and elderly,' he said. Christian Martinez, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said the bill that Valadao voted for will 'ease the burden on hardworking Californians' and took a swipe at Villegas and Bains. 'Their far-left agenda will continue to wreck California's economy, raise taxes, and put illegal immigrants ahead of California families,' Martinez said. Valadao has stood up to his own party before. Most notably, he was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But Trump has since further tightened his grip on the party, even threatening to back primary challenges to Republicans who stood in the way of his 'big, beautiful bill.' The sprawling domestic policy bill extends Trump's 2017 tax cuts, removes some taxes on tips and overtime, and beefs up funding for immigration enforcement and the military. While the legislation is generally unpopular in public polling, Republicans are betting once they start selling it, their members will be rewarded for supporting it. Some local business owners in Valadao's district hailed the bill and praised Valadao for backing it. Rob Taylor, who has owned Stafford's Chocolates in Portersville for the last 14 years, said he thinks some of the bill's tax provisions will be a boon for small businesses like his. 'I appreciate Valadao sticking up for himself and his constituents here,' Taylor, who has voted for Valadao in the past, told NBC News. 'He's not just a rubber stamp. He does look at both sides [of an issue].' In order to partially pay for the bill, Republicans opted to scale back Medicaid and food stamps. That includes instituting new work requirements for able-bodied adults, making undocumented immigrants ineligible for the program and putting new restrictions on the state provider tax, which is a significant source of revenue for rural hospitals. Moderate Republicans fended off even steeper cuts to Medicaid that had been in the mix during the negotiations, such as reducing the federal cost-sharing formula. But Valadao acknowledged he still harbors concerns over some of the Medicaid changes, particularly those impacting rural hospitals. Access to health care in rural areas can already be difficult. Often, facilities are dependent on help from the government to stay afloat. Kern Hospital in Bakersfield, a social safety net hospital, gets 72% of its patient revenue from Medi-Cal. Then there are rural health clinics, like the Bakersfield American Indian Health Project, where Garcia receives some of his care. These clinics rely on various revenue streams from the federal government and provide critical preventive care services to many low-income patients on Medicaid. 'There's no frills here. No one's taking advantage of anything. They're trying to survive,' Dr. Carson Chambers, a clinical psychologist at the Bakersfield American Indian Health Project, told NBC News. Asked about the impacts of the Medicaid cuts, Chambers said: 'It may be well-intentioned, it may be fiscally sound, but in the long run, I think it's going to cost more.'
Politico
7 days ago
- Politics
- Politico
California Republicans have a warning for Trump on ICE raids: ‘The fear in our communities is real.'
At the same time, Republicans who distance themselves from Trump risk inflaming their base voters, who are still ardently supportive of strict enforcement. 'Whether you're Valadao or Young Kim or anyone else, understand that the politics of trying to embrace the center necessarily means that you may alienate the right,' Fleischman said. Valadao, who represents an important agricultural region, weighed in on the issue in a social media post last month. 'I remain concerned about ongoing ICE operations throughout CA and will continue my conversations with the administration—urging them to prioritize the removal of known criminals over the hardworking people who have lived peacefully in the Valley for years,' he said on X. But he has kept a low profile on the issue ever since. His office said he was not available for an interview. Kim's spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. 'Republicans have real concerns about potential economic impacts, especially upon agriculture, with the way that enforcement is being conducted,' said Rob Stutzman, a Sacramento-based GOP strategist who advises political and corporate clients. Republican dissent is largely limited to criticism of the ICE raids — which have resulted in the arrests of hundreds of people who have no convictions or pending charges despite the administration's portrayal of the operation as targeted at serious criminals — and not of the president. GOP officials are also quick to accuse Democrats and former President Joe Biden of not doing enough to stop illegal immigration. They blame the media and activists for spreading fear about the sweeps. Still, even the muted public criticism, combined with the recent polls showing that public concern about immigration is receding , suggest the winds may be shifting on a signature element of Trump's policy agenda. 'There's going to be Republicans hedging on this for sure,' Mike Madrid, a Republican political strategist and author of 'The Latino Century,' said after the release of a Gallup Poll that showed a majority of Americans now disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration. 'It's coming, and it has to. The numbers are just unbelievable.' In California, Trump started to make good on his oft-promised mass deportations in June. U.S. authorities had carried out immigration operations in the past, of course, but not at this scale, described as a 'siege' in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of activists, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the United Farm Workers, and joined by the city of Los Angeles.
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
22nd District race heats up as endorsements roll in
If it wasn't already, the 2026 election season in Kern County is in full swing. Randy Villegas — now one of at least two Democrats to challenge U.S. Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford — announced an endorsement from the progressive Working Families Party on Monday, setting himself up as a grassroots alternative to the status quo. 'There's an old saying in Spanish, 'dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres,' which translated to English means, 'tell me who you're with, and I'll tell you who you are,'' Villegas said Monday at a rally in front of Valadao's Bakersfield office. 'The same thing can be said about politics. Tell me who you're taking money from, and I'll tell you who you're actually working for,' Villegas said. A Visalia Unified School District board member and a political science professor at College of the Sequoias, Villegas was the first Democrat to officially throw his hat into the ring for California's 22nd Congressional District race. The district is seen as one of the most vulnerable in the nation, and though Valadao has been able to mostly hold onto his seat since 2013, he's been voted out once and regularly has to fight off well-financed challengers. But the centerpiece of Villegas' campaign is that he is refusing to accept money from corporate political action committees, or PACs, which means he'll likely have less money for glossy TV and radio ads, canvassing and all the other expenses that come with political campaigns. But that willingness to stand up to entrenched interests in the name of meaningful change was what could reinvigorate the Democratic base in the wake of the drudging the party took in the 2024 election. 'We know that it's not good enough to say that we're not Trump, or that we're not Valadao. We need to offer something more to our country, to our community,' Villegas said with a crowd of more than 30 people behind him. 'I think we need to start by getting rid of corporate PAC contributions in the Democratic Party,' Villegas said. 'I think we need to be willing to say that we are working for working-class people, and we can't claim to do that if we're taking the same money that Republicans are.' Villegas said Democrats should advocate for policies that reign in profiteering by corporations, which he called corporate greed. 'I think any politician who accepts money from these corporations that say that they need to raise prices while they're reaching record-breaking profits, including the oil industry, is selling us out,' Villegas said. 'Corporations shouldn't be claiming to be struggling when they're seeing record-breaking profits, and then still engaging in corporate greed and passing those costs onto our consumers.' Along with the endorsement of the Working Families Party, Villegas announced his campaign had raised $230,000 since April, evidence, he said, of significant grassroots support. 'The folks that we advocate for and the folks that we want to push for aren't just regular Democrats. They're ones that are going to be accountable to working families,' said Neel Sannappa, an organizer with Working Families Party. That was a message that will motivate people, Sannappa said. He pointed to the April visit from progressive duo Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which filled the Dignity Health Theater to capacity on a Tuesday. 'There's a reason that Democrats like that can do that, and there's a reason that Democrats that take corporate money aren't able to do that,' Sannappa said. In a statement, Republican National Congressional Committee spokesman Christian Martinez said Valadao voted to protect Medicaid for its intended recipients; children, pregnant women, the disabled and the elderly. 'Radical Randy Villegas is bankrolled by socialist extremists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,' Martinez said in a text message. 'He's proudly endorsed their far-left agenda that destroyed California's economy and puts California families last.' Last week, Assemblywoman Dr. Jasmeet Bains, D-Delano, officially jumped into the race and quickly racked up her own set of endorsements. Bains announced endorsements from nine Congressional Democrats and the Service Employees International Union and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Former Assemblyman Rudy Salas —who challenged Valadao in 2022 and 2024 — filed paperwork to run in 2026 but has not committed to doing so. According to filings with the Federal Elections Commission, former Congressional candidate Eric Garcia, a Democrat, has also filed paperwork to run. Valadao has largely been able to defend his seat, even in a district with more registered Democrats than Republicans, but 2026 will be a difficult year, said Christian Grose, a political science professor at the University of Southern California. Moderates who may have voted for Valadao in the past might be put off by his vote for House Resolution 1, formerly known as the Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enacted steep cuts to programs relied on locally, namely Medicaid. 'I think that vote is going to cause some voters to move away just because the district is so dependent on Medicaid,' Grose told The Californian. Valadao's district has the highest percentage of Medicaid enrollment in the state, 67%, and reductions to the program were cited specifically by Bains, a physician, upon her entrance to the race. Grose said voters in the district might not be motivated by Villegas' pledge not to accept corporate donations but will respond to attacks on the social safety net. 'The corporate money, I don't think that resonates much. It is more about bread-and-butter economic issues,' Grose said. 'I do think the more progressive argument, the lack of the social safety net, that can be pretty powerful in that district.' 'Corporate PAC money doesn't really matter to voters in that district,' he said. 'the social safety net does matter.' Grose also noted that Villegas not accepting corporate money won't stop those PACs from spending on the race, either for or against him. 'If purposely you're trying to raise less money, it's going to make it harder,' Grose said. 'Valadao will be spending money.' Despite the blowback from the vote on HR1, Grose believes Valadao will survive the state's top-two primary system to be one of the candidates in the general election. That just leaves the other candidate, and in the 22nd District, Grose said he thinks a more moderate stance is the winning option. 'More moderate is more competitive; the district is more 'small c' conservative,' Grose said. 'Democrats there are different from the rest of the state.'
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Citing cuts to health care, Bains says she's running for Congress
Assemblywoman Dr. Jasmeet Bains, D-Delano, said she's running for California's 22nd Congressional District, the seat currently held by U.S. Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford. 'From the beginning of this year, a lot of people were asking me if I would ever consider a run for Congress, and I kept saying, 'I hope I don't have to,'' said Bains, a family physician who's served in California's 35th Assembly District since 2022. Bains said much of the work that she entered politics to accomplish was now being undone by the Trump administration, aided and abetted, she said, by Valadao in his recent vote for the massive reconciliation bill recently passed by Congress. 'I have been working day in, day out, to help expand access in an area with some of the most Medicaid patients in the country and this directly cuts a lot of the work that I have been doing,' Bains said. 'The whole reason why I even ran for an Assembly (seat) in the first place.' Speculation around the assemblywoman's potential run has swirled for months, but it wasn't until speaking with The Californian that Bains confirmed her intention to run. California's 22nd District is considered one of the most competitive in the nation and Valadao has been the target of relentless campaigning by Democrat-aligned groups for months. It also has the highest level of Medicaid enrollment in the state — 67%, according to UC Berkeley — making the focus of those attacks the proposed cuts to the program. 'I was shocked when I saw Congressman Valadao vote for what he himself said would decimate health care in our Central Valley, would take away vital access to care in an area that has the least access to begin with,' Bains said. Valadao didn't say revisions to Medicaid would decimate the valley, but he did sign onto a letter in June with other Congressional Republicans cautioning against changes made by the U.S. Senate. In a statement, Valadao said the vote on the reconciliation bill was not an easy one and he said he'd received assurances from the administration about the $50 billion allocated for rural health. Ahead of votes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Bains appeared in advertisements urging Valadao to vote against the bill. Following the U.S. House of Representatives' vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Bains submitted in the state Legislature a resolution to formally censure all nine members of California's Republican Congressional Delegation who voted for it. Yet Bains has also previously clashed with her own party. In 2023, she was removed from an Assembly committee assignment by party leadership for being the only Democrat to vote no on a bill targeting the oil and gas industry. Those clashes were evidence, Bains said, of her willingness to put the interests of her district ahead of party politics. Bains said repeatedly during an interview with The Californian that her loyalty was to the district first. 'Voters in this district just saw their congressman choose party loyalty over them. That is something that I, from the first day I was in the Assembly, it was about choosing my district first,' Bains said. 'This area needs a representative that will choose them first. My loyalty again to the people in this district will always come first.' Bains is the second Democrat to officially challenge Valadao. In April, Visalia School Board member Randy Villegas announced his run for Congress, running on a progressive platform and vowing not to take any corporate political action committee money. Bains declined to make a similar commitment, saying she is focused on bringing health care back to the district. 'I am a doctor,' Bains said. 'I have been fighting to increase health care and I've been fighting to increase access to health care. I continue focusing on the issues that matter most, health care and also affordability, making sure that government is working for the people.' Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have criticized Bains for accepting money from the oil and gas industry. Past campaigns in the district have brought in massive amounts of money, much of it from donors outside the district. According to the Federal Elections Commission, in the 2024 race Valadao's campaign raised nearly $5 million while Democratic challenger Rudy Salas raised $6.5 million. Salas, himself a former Assemblyman, twice lost to Valadao, in 2022 and 2024. He's filed paperwork with the FEC to run in 2026, but has not committed to doing so. Valadao's campaign did not immediately respond to request for comment Tuesday, but in an email, Republican National Congressional Committee spokesman Christian Martinez called Bains a radical. 'Radical Democrat Jasmeet Bains will never represent the values of the Central Valley with her extreme record that sells out hardworking California families,' Martinez said. 'She's more focused on handing out taxpayer-funded home loans, welfare and free health care to illegal immigrants than defending the very Californians footing the bill. Californians deserve better than a radical activist masquerading as their representative.' Whether or not Bains is elected to Congress, running for the 22nd District means she won't be able to run for the 35th Assembly District, leaving a vacancy in that seat for the 2026 election. California's primary election isn't until June 2026, but only the two top vote-getting candidates in that race will move on to the general election. Whether or not she's elected to Congress, Bains said she is first and foremost a doctor. 'This is a doctor taking her oath to the highest level. I never signed up for this job in the Assembly to be a career politician. I am staying true to who I said I was from day one,' Bains said. 'This is about a doctor taking her oath to protect her community.'
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Asm. Dr. Jasmeet Bains announces 2026 run for Congress for Rep. David Valadao's seat
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Assemblywoman Dr. Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano) has announced her bid for California's 22nd Congressional District Wednesday morning. Bains will be looking to unseat Republican incumbent Rep. David Valadao of Hanford in the 2026 election. Trump tells Texas Republicans to redraw the state congressional map to help keep House majority In a post on X, Bains emphasizes her career as a family doctor, directly calling out Valadao for voting yes on the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' and 'for the largest cut to health care in history.' Bains joins fellow Democrat Randy Villegas in opposing Valadao. 17 News will have a candidate profile with Bains. Check back for updates. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
