9 months ago
Democrats were supposed to be gearing up for an all-out battle against incumbent GOP Rep. David Valadao for a coveted swing seat in California’s Central Valley.
Instead, they are staring down the humiliating prospect of being locked out of the November runoff by Valadao and another Republican — and are blaming each other for bungling their shot.
The party establishment has already spent more than $2 million to boost former state Assemblymember Rudy Salas in the top-two March 5 primary over fellow Democrat Melissa Hurtado — a current state senator who has said she entered the race with encouragement from EMILYs List, which supports pro-abortion-rights Democratic women.
CA-22, a large, agricultural district that went for President Joe Biden by 13 points, is one of the nation’s most competitive contests this year and key to Democrats winning back control of the House. Valadao lost the seat to a Democrat in 2018 but won it back two years later. In 2022, Salas — the only Democrat on the ballot that cycle — finished first in the primary and came within three points of flipping the seat.
This time Salas is embroiled in one of the messiest House primaries in California. The fear is that Hurtado’s mere presence on the ballot could siphon enough votes from Salas in the Republican-leaning primary to land him in third place after Valadao and his far-right challenger, Chris Mathys.
Tensions spilled out into the open this week as the Salas campaign attacked Hurtado with ads painting the fellow Democrat as “hostile to reproductive freedom.” Hurtado, in response, defended her record as an advocate for abortion rights and accused Salas of dishonesty.
“Leave it to a man like Rudy Salas to lie about my record — a woman’s record — on reproductive freedom,” she said in a statement. “He should be ashamed.”
Republicans are dealing with their own heartburn. Squashing Mathys has required nearly $900,000 of outside intervention from Republican Party committees and super PACs. But the intraparty warfare on the right pales in comparison to the spending and finger-pointing consuming the Democrats.
One California Democratic strategist said there’s a huge concern that Democrats will get boxed out of one of the top pick-up opportunities in the country because of a primary challenge that could’ve been avoided with a few phone calls.
“The good news is that the nightmare scenario is avoidable with enough resources,” said the strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the party dynamics. “The bad news is that time is running out.”
The last-minute crunch has also exacerbated tensions with EMILYs List, which played a significant role in Hurtado’s candidacy.
In a July memo to Hurtado, EMILYs List presented polling data to the state senator showing she was in a "very strong position to beat Rudy Salas in a primary” and go on to win the general election. A month later, Hurtado formally launched her campaign.
Hurtado — who has faced pressure from Democrats to drop out of the race — has stated publicly that she did not consider entering the race until she received encouragement from the group, which is now distancing itself from the state senator as the party faces the disastrous primary scenario.
"EMILYs List talks to thousands of women running for office,” Danni Wang, deputy director of campaign communications, said in a statement. “We provided Melissa Hurtado with publicly available data about her past electoral performance."
Hurtado’s campaign declined to comment on the party dynamics or the role of EMILYs List in her decision to run.
Hurtado, despite raising less than $60,000 and running a lackluster campaign, has high enough name recognition in the district as a state lawmaker to split the vote and knock both Democrats out of the runoff.
The threat is so concerning that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has avoided taking sides in other California House primaries, backed Salas in late January, and has spent more than $830,000 on joint ad buys with his campaign.
“The DCCC will do whatever it takes to ensure that MAGA enabler David Valadao is ousted from Congress this November, and Rudy Salas — who came within just over 3,000 votes of unseating Valadao in 2022 — is the best candidate to get the job done,” DCCC spokesman Dan Gottlieb said in a statement.
The committee declined to comment on whether Hurtado should step down.
The Democratic House Majority PAC also didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment on the race, where it has spent $1.15 million to back Salas.
Last cycle the PAC invested heavily to promote Mathys in an attempt to knock Valadao out of the runoff. Mathys came within 200 votes of Valadao but finished behind him in third place.
The GOP once again finds itself trying to counter Mathys in the district, hoping to keep Valadao in the good graces of its conservative voters. Ads for Valadao have focused on his efforts to secure the border, and highlighted his support for law enforcement.
The Congressional Leadership Fund recently launched an ad painting Mathys as “dangerously liberal.”
If Salas manages to skirt defeat on March 5, he still faces an uphill slog. Valadao, after being temporarily unseated in 2018, has managed to hang onto the purple seat thanks to name ID and moderate policy stances.
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