Mismatch in the California Central Valley
By Dr. Julie Martinez Ortega
Incumbent John Duarte (R) and Adam Gray (D)
There’s no reason why this San Joaquin Valley rematch shouldn’t go Blue
This week we feature yet another California rematch. In CA-13, located in the San Joaquin Valley, incumbent freshman John Duarte (GOP) faces challenger and Democrat Adam Gray in this district that was newly drawn after the 2020 Census redistricting process.
This new 13th congressional district includes all of Merced County; most of the population of Madera County; and parts of Stanislaus, Fresno, and San Joaquin Counties.
Second smallest margin of victory
The CA-13 is a district filled with working-class Latino families. The median family income there is just over $67,000, which is low relative to that of the rest of the state ($91,551), and the average education level is also low, especially among Latinos, with many households dependent on farmworker incomes.
In 2022, the CA-13 had the second smallest margin of victory for a House race nationally (a mere 564 votes), despite it being drawn by the CA Redistricting Commission as a seat that Democrats should be able to win.
Dems>GOP
As close as the 2022 race was, the underlying statistics in this district suggest that it should be represented in Congress by a Democrat. The voters there preferred now-President Biden over Donald Trump by over 11 percentage points in the 2020 cycle. And what’s more, the district has more registered Democrats than Republicans.
In the March 5, 2024 primary election, Duarte received 54.9% of the vote and Gray 45.1% and they were the only two candidates on the ballot. Duarte received 8,465 more votes. But the general election tends to draw out more Democrats than the general election does.
Agricultural area
The CA-13 comprises mainly agricultural areas in California’s Central Valley. While it’s not a progressive hotbed, its electorate is over 65% POC, which makes it a majority-minority voting district that we’d expect to be represented by the POCs’ favored candidate.
Instead, the CA-13 elected John Duarte in 2022, a man who describes himself as “not that far from a lot of” his colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus on fiscal issues. Duarte’s only job before being elected to Congress was working at his parents’ multi-million dollar agribusiness after he graduated from college. But it seems he didn’t do so well there. In 2017, the US Army Corp of Engineers accused him of violating the Clean Water Act by plowing a field, and he was ordered to pay a $2.8 million fine, hardly the sort of thing that his average constituent has ever experienced. In contrast, Democrat Adam Gray grew up working in his family’s supply and feed store. As a state assemblyman, he fought for fair access to water for the people in his district who depend on it for their livelihoods and has secured better access to healthcare for the rural constituents.
CA-13 REGISTERED TO VOTE, BY RACE
Turnout
To win in this district, Adam Gray is going to have to shrink the turnout gap between the district’s white and Latino populations from that of 2022 when Latinos turned out at a rate of 30% compared to whites at 57%.
Latinos comprise 53% of the registered voters in the CA-13. Combined with API (7%), African American (4%), and Native American registered voters, POC voters comprise 67% of the district’s registered voters. But while Latinos comprise over half of the registered voters, in 2022 they only cast 39% of the total ballots. White voters trended in the opposite direction. Whites were only 36% of the registered voters in the district, yet they cast half of all the votes in 2022.
CA-13 2022 BALLOTS CAST, BY RACE
More than enough voters
While it’s true that the 2022 race in the CA-13 was extraordinarily close, with Duarte winning by less than 600 votes, there is no reason why this district is not solid Blue given its demographics and the issues that matter most to its constituents. There are more than enough voters in the district to elect candidates who would represent their interests. *Native Americans comprise of only 98 people registered to vote in the district.