{"id":67513,"date":"2025-07-16T15:28:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T15:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67513\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T15:28:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T15:28:16","slug":"valadao-faces-a-congressional-challenge-from-a-family-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67513\/","title":{"rendered":"Valadao faces a congressional challenge from a family doctor"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maya C. Miller<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""A\"
\n\t\t\t\tAssemblymember Jasmeet Bains during the Assembly floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on May 16, 2024. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

A moderate Democratic state lawmaker and practicing physician announced Wednesday that she will seek to topple Central Valley Republican Rep. David Valadao next November in a closely watched congressional district that Democrats hope to win on their quest to take back the House.<\/p>\n

Dr. Jasmeet Bains<\/a>, a Bakersfield assemblymember, hopes to harness voter outrage at Valadao\u2019s decision to support President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping domestic policy bill, which experts say could strip health insurance from millions of low-income Californians. N<\/a>early 290,000 residents in his own district are at risk of losing coverage, according to the California Budget and Policy Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat vote was really a betrayal,\u201d Bains said in an interview with CalMatters. \u201cI did not envision ever running for Congress. But this is a matter of a doctor upholding her Hippocratic Oath that she took to protect her patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valadao, who has represented the Central Valley in Congress for 10 of the last 12 years, repeatedly asserted this year that he would not support any measure that would harm recipients of Medi-Cal, California\u2019s version of Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income patients and those with disabilities. He even released a statement<\/a> a week before the vote indicating he would move to block the U.S. Senate\u2019s version of the bill if it came back to the House.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet on July 2, and each time the bill came before him, Valadao cast an \u201caye\u201d vote. More than two-thirds of the residents in Valadao\u2019s Central Valley district, which includes parts of King\u2019s, Tulare and Kern Counties, rely on Medi-Cal for their health insurance.<\/p>\n

Bains, a moderate Democrat known for sometimes opposing her own party in the Legislature, has for months dropped strong hints that she might take on the five-term congressmember in the swing district. In May, she starred in an ad campaign<\/a> funded by SEIU California that urged viewers to call Valadao and tell him to vote against the GOP megabill. And political insiders interpreted a social media post shortly after the House sent the bill to Trump as an inevitable sign that she would jump into the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy community overwhelmingly elected me to office to fight for them because they know I am not afraid to go to any length to protect them,\u201d Bains wrote on <\/a>X the day after the megabill passed. \u201cIt might be time to call in the doctor!\u201d<\/p>\n

She joins Randy Villegas, a Visalia school board trustee and college professor, as the only two declared challengers in the race so far. Former Assemblymember Rudy Salas, who ran and lost against Valadao in 2022 and 2024, filed paperwork to run in 2026, although he has not announced his candidacy and his campaign raised less than $60<\/a> in the most recent quarter. Clovis Democrat Eric Garcia, a disabled Marine veteran whose three previous runs ended with losses in the primary<\/a>, also filed a statement of candidacy<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Bains said several patients at her family clinic have encouraged her to run to \u201cdo something\u201d about the rising costs of health care and the lack of access to physicians. In the Assembly, she spearheaded an effort to bring a University of California medical campus<\/a> to her district. She secured $8 million in state funding for a local task force to combat the spread of fentanyl, a cause she has championed as a doctor specializing in addiction treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All eyes are on Valadao’s seat<\/p>\n

Valadao has only lost his seat once, as part of the 2018 \u201cblue wave\u201d<\/a> where Democrats rode a wave of voter discontent with the first Trump administration to reclaim control of the House, highlighting the GOP\u2019s botched effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the vote, he defended his support<\/a> for the megabill as \u201cnot an easy decision\u201d and said he still had concerns about how certain aspects would be implemented.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I voted for this bill because it does preserve the Medicaid program for its intended recipients \u2013 children, pregnant women, the disabled, and elderly,\u201d Valadao wrote. \u201cNo piece of legislation is perfect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since first winning her Assembly seat in 2022, Bains has earned a reputation as a moderate who frequently breaks ranks with her party. She was the lone Democrat to vote against Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s proposal to penalize oil companies<\/a> that exceed a certain profit margin set by state regulators. As punishment, former Speaker Anthony Rendon temporarily stripped Bains of her post on the Business and Professions Committee, a desirable committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy constituents have seen me take on my party when it comes to having their back,\u201d Bains said, emphasizing that she often pushes back on issues of affordability. \u201cI could not believe that there was someone that was representing this district that could not do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""An\"Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a moderate Democrat from Bakersfield, has clashed with fellow Democrats on some policies. She is pictured in the state Capitol in Sacramento on July 13, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters<\/p>\n

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Bains grew up in Delano and returned to the Central Valley after graduating from the Illinois Institute of Technology. As the Great Recession hit and friends and neighbors lost their jobs and health care, Bains quit her job at her father\u2019s Chevrolet dealership in Taft to pursue medical school in Antigua.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She returned to Kern County for her residency and still sees patients on the weekends. In April she showed up to a Business and Professions Committee hearing dressed in scrubs after working a late night at the clinic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before she has the chance to take on Valadao though, both will need to prevail in the June primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I hoped we would have just one candidate’<\/p>\n

Villegas leans further left than Bains and has aligned himself with the Working Families Party. While he has resisted the label of \u201cprogressive\u201d<\/a> in favor of \u201ceconomic populist,\u201d some strategists fear he might be too liberal for the Central Valley. Since launching his campaign in mid-April, Villegas has so far raised more than $230,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Local Democratic leaders have said Bains will likely be the front runner to challenge Valadao, given her name recognition as an assemblymember and doctor in an election cycle that will likely be dominated by health care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the local Democratic Party chairs in Kern, Kings and Tulare caution that Bains is in no way a shoo-in, especially since she has positioned herself as a political outsider who bucks party leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cathleen Jorgensen, who chairs the Kings County Democrats, said she has not been contacted by Bains or her team, a \u201ctroubling\u201d sign since Villegas has made himself widely available. Jorgensen said she wished the party could present a united front behind a single candidate from now through next November, rather than pit multiple contenders against each other in a primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m concerned that it might become negative,\u201d said Jorgensen, who has been impressed with Villegas. \u201cI really had hoped that maybe we would have just one candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christian Romo, chair of the Kern County Democrats, warned that while health care might be the current hot political topic, much could change between now and June 2. Running as a single-issue candidate, as Bains plans to do, is a risky bet and will require that voters remember Valadao\u2019s vote for the megabill. That could be challenging, especially since the most severe changes to Medi-Cal won\u2019t happen until after November 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don’t keep that momentum, if we don’t keep reminding people that you’re going to lose health insurance, you’re going to lose your food assistance, you’re going to lose your veterans\u2019 benefits and services that we desperately depend on,\u201d Romo said, \u201cthen I don’t see us winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Maya C. Miller, CalMatters Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains during the Assembly floor session at the state Capitol in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[47694,1853,47695,210,1141,1142,31363,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-67513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-california-legislature","10":"tag-david-valadao","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-u-s-congress","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114863623548555601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}