A competitive congressional race in California could be key to helping Democrats regain control of the House.
Several nonpartisan political analysts indicated former Democratic Assemblyman Adam Gray has a fighting chance to unseat Rep. John Duarte (R-CA) during interviews with the Sacramento Bee.
The pair faced off for the first time two years ago, with Duarte ultimately winning California’s 13th Congressional District race by under 600 votes. While Duarte’s narrow margin of victory indicates he’s particularly vulnerable to this year’s rematch with Gray, political pundits view his status as a first-term congressman as an additional hurdle the Republican will have to overcome.
“Anything that’s good for Democrats is going to have an outsized effect on Duarte simply because he’s the less-tested candidate,” Jacob Rubashkin, a deputy editor of Inside Elections, said.
Erin Covey, a House analyst and editor at the Cook Political Report, added that Duarte “can also be more easily roped into the national Republican Party because he hasn’t had as much time to show voters that he’s not like other Republicans.”
Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the lower chamber as they fight to expand their slim majority this November. Last month, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which serves as the House GOP’s campaign arm, urged members to focus on defensive fundraising efforts to ward off Democratic challengers.
The NRCC earlier this year touted “the Committee’s best month of June in a presidential election year.” However, the GOP’s celebration came before Vice President Kamala Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket. She fueled record fundraising numbers for her party, signaling that expanding the Republican footprint in the House could be a tighter battle than previously anticipated.
“We ultimately believe the most likely outcome is a single-digit gain for either party,” the Cook Political Report’s Erin Covey wrote in a Sept. 5 reflection on whether House Republicans or Democrats would claim the victory this November.
Meanwhile, Inside Elections noted basically the same message in a report that found Republicans are “still slight favorites to hold the House” but estimated the range of outcomes is a mere “Democratic gain of five seats to a Republican gain of five seats.”
Pundits rate California’s race between Duarte and Gray as a toss-up. The pair hail from a Latino-majority voting-age district in the politically purple San Joaquin Valley. The district also went to President Joe Biden in 2020 with 54% of the vote.
Duarte earned a critical endorsement from the Central Valley Leadership Round Table last December, touting himself as “the first Republican to have been endorsed” by the coalition of Latino leaders.
Mike Lynch, a longtime Democratic strategist and former chief of staff to Gray, said the race would come down to a “coin-toss difference.”
“In this particular election, the factors are beyond anybody’s control,” he told NOTUS.
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The GOP still hopes to pull off another victory in the Golden State’s San Joaquin Valley. Two years ago, the Right rejoiced when Duarte successfully won his race to become the first Republican to represent California’s 13th District since 1975.
“Let’s send a farmer back to Congress to protect the American dream,” Duarte said in a post to X last month.
