Politics
How Kevin McCarthy is influencing this congressional race — without being on the ballot
As he stood on a sun-dappled patio overlooking the Visalia Country Club, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux didn’t mince words about his chances in his run for Congress.
“I am the underdog,” Boudreaux told a crowd of supporters. “I am pushing back against a machine that is so powerful that it’s very challenging, to say the least.”
The power behind the machine is former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), who resigned from Congress last year after being voted out as House speaker. His name is not on the ballot, but McCarthy’s political influence and campaign funds are still major factors in the fight over who will serve out the remainder of his term in Congress.
Voters in the 20th Congressional District, the most conservative in California, will choose Tuesday between two Republican candidates: Boudreaux, a sheriff from the northern half of the district; and Assemblymember Vince Fong, a lawmaker who represents Bakersfield in Sacramento and previously worked for McCarthy.
The special election is expected to be a relatively low-key, low-turnout affair. But the stakes are high: Whoever wins the special election will be the incumbent on the November ballot, a significant advantage in the race for the full two-year term.
“Boudreaux is the outsider, the David vs. the Goliath,” said Mark Salvaggio, a Bakersfield political commentator and former member of the City Council. “Fong is McCarthy’s heir apparent, and the scales are tilted in his favor.”
Fong and Boudreaux are aligned on most major policy issues: opposing abortion, reducing illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and securing better water and energy policies for the agricultural Central Valley.
Boudreaux, 57, has been the sheriff of Tulare County for more than a decade and serves as the head of the California State Sheriffs’ Assn.
“I’ve been on the streets, on patrol, enforcing issues of immigration and crime resulting from bad legislation,” Boudreaux said. “I have 38 years of real life experiences that I can take to the Hill.”
Fong, 44, began his career working for McCarthy’s predecessor, then-Rep. Bill Thomas, then worked for nearly a decade as McCarthy’s district director before winning a seat in the state Assembly in 2016.
Fong considers McCarthy a friend and mentor, but said he has spent years building his own track record in Sacramento, where he is the vice chair of the budget committee. He said he has fought for “fiscal sanity” and worked on bills to help the Central Valley address fentanyl, wildfires, supply chain shortages and water storage.
“We need the most experienced and effective voice possible,” Fong said. “We have enough people in Congress that want to be social influencers, but we need more people who are going to be focused on making good policy.”
Fong finished first in the March primary elections for the full two-year term and the remainder of McCarthy’s term. In fundraising he enjoys a wide lead, too.
Boudreaux raised about $425,000 by May 1, according to federal filings. Fong raised almost $1.5 million in the same period.
Fong’s campaign is running ads across the San Joaquin Valley and has hired a fundraiser who has worked for McCarthy, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Republican Party.
McCarthy and Trump attend a legislation signing rally with local farmers in Bakersfield in 2020.
(David McNew / Getty Images)
A political action committee called Central Valley Values has reported raising an additional $950,000 to support Fong, according to federal filings. Of that, about $450,000 came through McCarthy’s Majority Committee PAC. The other $500,000 came from a new PAC funded by major Republican donors, including Barbara Grimm-Marshall of Bakersfield’s Grimmway Farms, the world’s largest carrot grower.
So far this year, Central Valley Values has spent nearly $400,000 on social media advertising, direct mail and text messages to support Fong, and more than $170,000 to oppose Boudreaux, federal filings show.
“The McCarthy machine is huge,” Boudreaux said. Running against it, he said, is “daunting, to say the least.”
Another sign of McCarthy’s involvement was President Trump’s endorsement of Fong in March. The endorsement was a blow to Boudreaux and a coup for Fong, who has largely avoided the culture wars that dominate factions of the GOP and is now seeking to win over right-wing Republicans skeptical of the political establishment.
McCarthy has previously helped guide Trump’s California endorsements, including persuading him two years ago not to endorse a right-wing challenger to Central Valley Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Republicans in the northern part of the district in Kings, Tulare and Fresno counties say the Boudreaux campaign is one way to express their frustration with how often their neighbors to the south call the political shots. Kern County, home to Bakersfield, is the traditional seat of power in the 20th District and is home to more than half the registered voters.
Retired Republican Rep. Connie Conway, who replaced former Rep. Devin Nunes after he resigned from Congress, said at the Boudreaux fundraiser, to laughter, that she had encountered “just a little pressure” not to endorse the sheriff.
“Kern County thinks they’re kingmakers,” said Boudreaux supporter Mariann Bettencourt, a former chair of the Tulare County Republican Party. “They don’t much like it when you run against them.”
Fong is well known and popular in Bakersfield. Red, white and blue signs supporting his campaign were visible recently outside homes, offices and businesses like Moo Creamery, a diner known for its homemade ice cream.
Bakersfield resident Marcia Albert, 75, said she had gotten to know Fong’s name over the years from hearing him on the radio and reading his name in the newspaper. She didn’t know much about Boudreaux.
A Republican who retired from the Monterey County district attorney’s office, Albert said she liked that Fong prioritized issues that matter to her, such as small government and immigration, especially the “crisis at the southern border.”
“He’s a strong conservative,” she said. “That’s what Washington needs.”
Bakersfield resident Brenda Popejoy, 74, said she didn’t much like either candidate. The retired government worker voted in the primary for Democrat Marisa Wood, who finished third with 22.6% of the vote. Popejoy said she’s voting Tuesday based on who she does know.
“McCarthy endorsed Fong, and I hate Kevin McCarthy,” Popejoy said. “So I’m voting for the other guy.”
Whether Fong could even enter the race was in question until recently.
Two months after being voted out as speaker of the House, McCarthy announced that he was leaving Congress at the end of 2023.
McCarthy’s retirement extended the filing period for the congressional race by five days. Boudreaux said he started getting calls from politicians who wanted him to run. Fong put out a statement saying he wouldn’t run, and Boudreaux entered the race.
Fong changed his mind four days later and filed to run for Congress. He told The Times that he had expected other candidates to enter the race, and when they didn’t, he had a change of heart after seeing a “massive void in the field, in terms of someone that was going to ensure that our community had an effective voice in Congress.”
Fong said that he tried to withdraw from his Assembly seat, but was blocked by Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, a Democrat, who argued that the deadline had already passed. She also said that state election law barred candidates from running for two offices at the same time.
Fong’s campaign sued Weber, and won in court in Sacramento County and again in the 3rd District Court of Appeal.
Ken Weir, a member of the Bakersfield City Council and the head of the Kern County GOP, ran a write-in campaign for the 32nd District Assembly seat. He finished second in the primary, with about 15.9% of the vote to Fong’s 82.4%. Weir will appear as a candidate on the November ballot, alongside Fong.
If Fong is elected to both offices, he would resign from the Assembly and head to D.C., and election officials would hold a special election to fill the Assembly vacancy in 2025, a Fong campaign spokesman said.
With the school year inching toward a close and with summer on the horizon, interest in Tuesday’s special election remained faint compared with more day-to-day priorities, including rising costs.
As he played with his two young daughters at a park along the Kern River, Juan Perez, 24, said he had seen signs for Fong’s congressional campaign but didn’t know when the election was being held.
Perez, a landscaper who said he has voted for Republicans and Democrats, said he and his wife had both started working part time as food delivery drivers to help cover the rising cost of daily necessities such as diapers, groceries and gas.
“It feels like we’re falling behind every month,” Perez said. “Whoever wins, I don’t think it’s going to matter for me.”
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump could fire independent regulators for any reason. But the justices carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, preventing the immediate removal of Lisa D. Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.
Politics
Emotion and feelings: How Democratic Socialists’ congressional insurgency could come back to bite them
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Democratic Socialists of America are on the charge, running hot off their wins in the New York Democratic primaries last week. Their victories in multiple Congressional seats – felling both Reps. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., and Dan Goldman, D-N.Y. – signals that the party is ready to move on from the same old, same old.
Espaillat chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Goldman was a key House staffer during the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“Even Dan Goldman’s not good enough for them,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Fox. “That is how radical it’s become.”
Some moderate Democrats are trying to distance themselves from the left.
MAMDANI-BACKED SOCIALISTS LOOK TO TAKE NEW YORK PLAYBOOK NATIONWIDE AFTER PRIMARY VICTORIES
The left flank of the Democratic Party has surged to the top of the nation’s most hotly-contested primaries. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
“That’s not the same brand of politics that we have. We’re not those type of Democrats,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., who represents a battleground district.
“There’s a new group of Democratic Socialists who are socialists who are not commonsense Democrats. Who are not interested in getting things done. They’re interested in throwing bombs. Not actually solving problems,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.
LURCHING LEFT: MAMDANI-BACKED CANDIDATES OUST ESTABLISHMENT DEMOCRATS
Some Democrats are worried how far left candidates command more attention than those in the middle. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich., worries that the outsized attention garnered by the left sends the wrong impression to voters.
“What they don’t want is divisiveness. They don’t want screaming and yelling,” said McDonald Rivet.
Mainstream Democrats feel trapped in the middle as the left – specifically the New York City left – wields an outsized media and political megaphone.
“Those candidates would not have won in Virginia where I live,” said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., is among the moderate Democrats trying to distance themselves from the party’s insurgent wing. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Republicans believe they are primed to nationalize the midterms. Republicans can do that by highlighting the extreme views of Democratic Socialists who captured primary victories in New York City. The GOP wants to portray their opponents as veering left.
“These are board-certified communists, right?” asked Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. “They want no police. They want no private property.”
President Trump capitalized on the Democratic outcomes in his home city.
“The Democrat party is in big trouble because this isn’t stopping with New York,” he forecast.
VICTORIES BY MAMDANI-BACKED CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES SPOTLIGHTS GROWING RIFT IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY
This shakeup has progressive leaders demanding transformation at the top.
“You’re going to see, I think, people voting for new leadership and to change their representation,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
The Democratic Party tapped Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., to deliver their official response to President Trump’s 2025 State of the Union speech. Slotkin is a moderate who won in a battleground race in 2024 – even as the President prevailed in the Wolverine State. But during an appearance on SiriusXM, Slotkin insists on a Democratic Party management switch.
“If people can’t understand that the game has fundamentally changed and they can’t adapt, then they need to let others,” said Slotkin. “The old models do not work for people.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is perceived by Republicans as vulnerable after his preferred candidates failed in their congressional primaries. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
Republicans believe House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is vulnerable after the DSA elected their candidates over his preferred picks in New York City.
“I think Hakeem Jeffries’ friends and neighbors gave him a big middle finger,” said House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. “If you lose three elections in your hometown, that’s a pretty big slap in the face.”
He added that Democrats “are going further and further to the left to the point where they are full-blown, card-carrying socialists.”
And then there is the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and in some cases, antisemitic take by some of these candidates. Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, is a moderate Democrat from a swing district. He’s Jewish and one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in the House.
“There are some on the left who use Israel the way that some on the right use immigrants or trans kids as a way to divide. And I think it’s terrible. It’s also just not what voters want us talking about,” said Landsman.
HOUSE DEMOCRAT LASHES OUT WHEN GRILLED ON WHETHER SOCIALIST VICTORIES WOULD THREATEN DEM UNITY
Yours truly tangled with Rep. John Larson, D-Conn. – who once chaired the House Democratic Caucus. I pressed him about what the party would do about some candidates “who are too far to the left.”
“What does that mean? That’s your statement. Did the people of New York vote?” queried Larson.
I assured him that they did.
“Is that democracy?” asked Larson.
“But if some of them are antisemitic,” I countered.
“Is that a democracy?” continued Larson.
“Will you stand by people if they have antisemitic views?” I followed up.
Larson finally addressed my inquiry. His answer crystallized the schism the Democratic Party now faces.
“I’m against antisemitism, if that’s your question,” Larson declared.
Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., got into a heated exchange with Fox News’ Chad Pergram over the views of some likely members of his party’s next freshman class. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The fact that Democrats are now facing this debate robs them of valuable time on economic issues.
Landsman argued that voters would prefer candidates to stick to groceries and the price of gas.
Gottheimer echoed Landsman on kitchen table subjects.
“We should be focused on ways to actually solve problems like that. Not coming in here and using tea party tactics and trying to divide up the country and pray to socialist ideals,” said Gottheimer.
So what is the party to do?
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“They’re our nominees. We’re going to support them. We’re going to welcome them. They’re going to be part of our caucus and we’re going to unite behind Leader Jeffries,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Oversight panel.
But that doesn’t address the fissures. It doesn’t address how voters may perceive the party. And it doesn’t establish if these new Democratic nominees will work on behalf of the party to raise money and advocate for Democrats across the board. Or, will they become professional bomb throwers – ala what the right has endured for a while.
“It’s going to be a lot harder to get things done when you get more and more extreme candidates who are here because they’re interested in political celebrity. They are interested in fighting. They’re interested in making points,” asserted Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.
Republicans have had an abysmal week themselves – President Donald Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., for instance, got into a shouting match over Iran. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images)
Republicans suffered through an absolutely abysmal week. House GOP leaders had to yank multiple bills off the floor and send lawmakers home early because of internal disputes. President Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., got into a shouting match about Iran. And the president even threatened to veto a bipartisan housing bill. President Trump then refused to sign the bill at the Capitol, despite his aides touting the bill and House Republicans tricking out Statuary Hall for a signing ceremony.
The President characterized the housing bill as “a yawn.”
But the Democrats’ internal fractures may have superseded any internecine fighting among Republicans.
“While it’s not been a great week for Republicans, I think it’s been a much worse week for Democrats because of these primary elections,” observed Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.
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Democrats will certainly run on economic issues and capitalize on statements by the President about basic issues like housing. But will a genuine policy debate outweigh fears about progressives nationwide?
Emotion and feelings rule in politics. And it could be a problem for Democrats if Republicans appropriate what happened in New York and Xerox it onto battleground districts across the country.
Anthropic teamed up with California to get more state workers to use its artificial intelligence assistant Claude as part of an effort to leverage technology to make the government more efficient.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who announced the partnership on Monday, said state agencies will be able to access Claude at a 50% discount. Free training and other assistance will also be available to the workers. California’s local governments will also get the same discount under the agreement.
Government workers can use Claude to draft and summarize documents, analyze information and do other tasks.
Anthropic, an AI company based in San Francisco, has a version of its AI assistant for government clients that provides more security than what it provides other consumers.
The new partnership shows how AI is playing a bigger role at work as tech companies market their tools as ways to complete tasks more quickly. Last year, San Francisco made Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, which is powered by OpenAI’s model, available to nearly 30,000 city employees.
Still, the rise of automation at work has heightened concerns that people will lose their jobs. There are also worries that there are not yet adequate guardrails in place to mitigate data privacy and security risks.
Anthropic and the governor said that they’re focused on the responsible use of AI.
“AI should not replace the human work of government; it should help our workers move faster, solve problems more effectively, and deliver better results for Californians,” Newsom said in a statement.
The remarks didn’t appear to comfort union leaders.
“Wow. Look local government, the Gov is giving you a 50% off coupon to give up your residents’ private data, outsource your jobs to big tech. Isn’t that cool? Because California basically invented AI slop!” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, in a post on X.
Anthropic has faced political hurdles as it pushes to get more companies and government agencies to use its products.
Most notable, it’s sparred publicly with the Trump administration, which ordered the company to cut off foreign access to its most powerful AI systems this month.
The Trump administration cited potential national security risks, but Anthropic disagreed with the findings. Last week, tensions decreased after the U.S. government gave Anthropic permission to restore access to its AI model Mythos to certain clients.
Valued at nearly $1 trillion, Anthropic has also signaled it plans to become a publicly traded company.
California has already started using Claude more in state government to develop tools to get the public to engage more in AI policy discussions and assist state workers, the governor’s office said in its news release.
State agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, are also using AI to reduce wait times and improve customer service.
“As state employees, our goal is to provide our fellow Californians with the best possible service,” Government Operations Agency Secretary Nick Maduros said in a statement. “To do that, we need to make sure our teams have access to the best modern tools, including Claude and other emerging technologies.”
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