Dem eyes House seat that swung nearly 20 points to Trump

Democratic California Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains is reportedly preparing to run against Republican California Rep. David Valadao in the 2026 midterms as Valadao’s district continues to trend further to the right. 

Bains, a family medicine and addiction doctor, will be launching her bid for California’s 22nd congressional district this month, Punchbowl News reported. The state lawmaker has already run ads across the district urging Valadao to vote against President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful” bill — which Valadao voted for on Thursday.and previously on May 22.

“I’m trying to see as many patients as I can because Congress is trying to cut their Medi-Cal [California Medical Assistance Program],” Bains said in the ad paid for by a group called Health Care Saves Lives. Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid program.

Bains has represented Kern County in the state legislature since 2023. She is also the Central Valley’s Chief Medical Officer for the California Medical Assistance Team — an organization that oversees some emergency health services for California.

Notably, Bains was the sole Democrat in the State Assembly to vote against a 2023 gas price gouging bill targeting oil companies. The bill was backed by and eventually signed into law by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Days after her vote, Bains was temporarily removed from the Business and Professions Committee by then Democratic California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.

“I will never throw my constituents under the bus,” Bains wrote in an X post at the time describing her opposition to the bill. Kern County is widely described as being at the center of California’s oil industry.

The 22nd congressional district, spanning from Bakersfield to Tulare County, is over 70% Hispanic and has moved 19 points to the right between the 2020 and the 2024 presidential election cycles. Former President Joe Biden beat Trump there by 13 percentage points in 2020, but Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris there by 6 points in 2024, according to data from the California Secretary of State’s office and Dave’s Redistricting App. Trump’s gains in the district reflect his gains with Hispanic voters nationwide.

Valadao, who was first elected to Congress in 2012, refrained from endorsing Trump in the 2016 election and lost his seat to Democrat TJ Cox in 2018. Valadao quickly won the district back in 2020 and voted to impeach Trump following Jan. 6, 2021. Nonetheless, the congressman met with the president on Wednesday to discuss his concerns over the reconciliation bill, although his office wouldn’t provide comment on how the talks went.

Valadao was worried about Medicaid provisions and rural hospitals, as his rural agriculture-based district has a large population of Medicaid recipients. He said in a statement after the vote that he voted for the bill due to its provisions that would help the district itself such as water infrastructure and crop research for his district, and tax credits for the Central Valley’s clean energy sector, claiming he “came to Congress to be a voice for our community.”

“It does preserve the Medicaid program for its intended recipients—children, pregnant women, the disabled, and elderly,” Valadao said in the statement. “The bill also includes dozens of other policy provisions that directly benefit CA-22, including blocking the largest tax hike on working families in American history, eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, expanding the Child Tax Credit, enhancing deductions for seniors, and keeping provisions in place that double the standard deduction for over 90% of taxpayers in my district.”

Also in the race for the congressional seat is Randy Villegas, a Democratic school board trustee from Visalia, and Democratic State Assemblyman Rudy Salas who has reportedly filed paperwork to run in 2026. Salas lost to Valadao in both the 2024 and 2022 general elections.

California uses a top-two all-party primary system for congressional elections — where the candidates with the highest and second-highest number of votes in the primary advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation.

Valadao and Bains’ offices did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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