Congressional District 49: Sixteen candidates are running to replace Rep. Darrell Issa
The competitive result in a district that should have been an easy
Four
The contest quickly turned from a Democratic fight against a common enemy to no-alliance cage match.
In all, there are four
The candidates are focused on health care, the environment and education and -- if they're
Thirty-seven percent of voters in the
The district runs from
Democrat
Applegate, a retired
That race, which brought an endorsement from then-President
"It's different because I get to talk to 153,000 people who already voted for me once. Nobody knew my name the first time around," Applegate said. "This is a different race because people actually have a different choice. And the only candidate that is really well-known is the guy who ran in 2016. The incumbent is gone so I have a different starting point."
Like before, he's campaigning on education, the environment, national security, expanding the Medicare health care program to all Americans and easing income disparity.
He's also questioning why
"
In 2016 Applegate faced attacks related to restraining orders issued in 2002 and 2004 during his divorce from his former wife, a record that has chased him into the #MeToo era.
Like before, Applegate's former wife is denouncing his opponents weaponization of their marital problems.
"We went through a difficult divorce as many people have, but to take things out of context and make Doug out to be an abuser is absurd...I support his run for
Campaign finance records show he raised
Republican
Holding steady in first or second in the polls, Chávez said the election will be won by the candidate who best understands the district. As a former
"I know the district, I've been elected here since 2002," he said.
Plus, as a retired
He's said he's a solid conservative, but he also said he's not a typical Republican. He said he's comfortable as an outsider who clashes with his party's establishment and believes the legislative branch is obligated act independently of the
"When people say 'We're with Trump all the way,' I come back and say that I am a constitutionalist and I believe that our founding fathers wanted actual friction between legislators and the executive," Chávez said.
He has been at odds with the
For an assemblyman representing a coastal district where outdoor activities are important, the bill made sense, Chávez said.
"That's why you need to be friendly and understanding of the environment. We're a tourism district, and people surf and we bike ride and people are here for a reason. That's kind of the crux of the matter," he said.
Chávez, who is 66, is a member of New Way California, a group of
He said he didn't get the endorsement from the
Chávez has raised
Republican
After serving as
"I know I fit this district very well, and I have not only had a lot of appeal to not only
Gaspar noted that she was elected mayor even though
Her experiences in public office gave her the opportunity to study how government works and how it doesn't, she said.
"Now that I've seen that, it has frustrated me to a level that in my first year of service, I hopped on a plane and flew to
The chief financial officer of a physical therapy company, she got into politics after she felt that local government wasn't tuned in to business interests.
After the
"There are people who do not want to follow our laws," she said.
She said that in the coastal district the environment is also a concern for voters. She would not say if she believes that climate change and the ensuing sea level rise is caused by human activity, and explained that people get entangled debating the cause and before they can ever collaborate on a solution.
"My position is that we carefully navigate all of these issues to make sure that our environment is being protected, our residents are being protected, and our businesses are being protected," she said.
Gaspar has raised
Democrat
A first-time candidate, Kerr is running on his life story and the empathy he built from his working class-roots. He watched his mother struggle with a terminal illness, climbed from a start as a listless
"How many more Harvard-educated,
He spent the first part of his childhood in a small town in
Kerr said his father struggled with bills while the family cared for their matriarch before she died from her illness.
"It was the longest and shortest three years of my life," he said.
He enlisted in the
He studied economics and real estate and became an appraiser. He later met his business partner and they now own their own firm, a company that owns about 2,500 apartment units, about 750,000 square feet of office space, and two industrial buildings. They also manage about 3,000 rental units and about 110 employees, he said.
"It's my experience with health care, it's my experience with veterans issues, it's my experience with income inequality...The truth is, more so than any other candidate in this race, I struggled in my life," he said.
After watching his mother through her illness and his family's financial struggles, he's campaigning heavily for a single-payer health care system and removing the age requirements for Medicare. One large government insurance system won't have to seek profits and will also have greater bargaining power with providers and drug companies, reducing costs by as much as 45 percent compared to the various state systems and hundreds of private insurers, he said.
Campaign finance reports show that his campaign has raised
Republican
A former
Endorsed by the
"That's why I am really focused on keeping the seat in the Republican column," she said over the phone. "I've got 30 years of banking and corporate finance experience and that's really important to understanding how business work."
She said that she's in the best position to improve the economy in the district.
"I understand what it takes to earn a living and I understand what it takes to be employed and have employees," she said.
A pro-growth Republican, she said she's looking to expand the number of high-paying jobs.
Illegal immigration and the state's sanctuary policy are common topics on the campaign trail, she said.
"I do support the wall," she said, referring to the
She said that people can still come into the country through legitimate ports of entry, but it deters people who are entering without permission.
"It's totally passable, workable, for anybody who wants to come back and forth to our country for an honest reason," she said.
While Harkey is campaigning as a taxpayer advocate, the
Harkey said that critical audits were about earlier board members and not her.
One investigation from last spring found misuse of government staff and a conference, which Harkey sponsored, had 23 sessions but only two were about taxes. There were sessions about "desk yoga," leadership development and negotiations.
The board was also dogged by scandals, including an instance where
State lawmakers overhauled the board during Harkey's tenue, cutting its staff and shifting workers to the new
Harkey said that the board was improving while she was leading.
"We were making a lot of reforms, those are on tape. Unfortunately the legislature chose to break up the board. I think the taxpayers lost their representation," she said.
She said that she also helped resolve tax disputes, re-wrote regulations to make them more user friendly and had outstanding constituent services.
Harkey has raised
Democrat
Jacobs grew up in the district and is returning to her hometown after working in foreign affairs. At 29 she's both the youngest of the candidates across the large field and the only Democratic woman running. She said these two demographics will be pivotal to her campaign's success.
"We have seen women and young people energized and excited and I think we need to make sure that we're giving them someone who looks like them and who can adequately represent their interests and views," she said.
Her team phone-banks 14 times per week, has more than two dozen college and high school interns, does direct voter contact every day and will reach 10,000 households at their door before the campaign launches it's get-out-the-vote effort, she said.
"A lot of people are saying this year that for them, what leadership means is listening. They're sort of tired of politicians who come with their talking points and give their speeches," she said.
Jacobs grew up in northern
She worked for the
She moved from
"We have an opportunity to really shake things up and not settle for how things have always been done," she said.
She said she brings a type of nuance to the race that the other candidates lack. All the
"So we're going to need to address domestic violence if we are going to really address gun violence," she said.
The biggest issue in the district, she said, seems to be unequal access to opportunities and the underlying causes behind them. While the district has some of the country's nicest homes and neighborhoods, there are also parts that are struggling and constituents who want to work but find that there are barriers like expensive childcare that get in the way of their success.
"I talk a lot about the need for affordable childcare, and the lack of affordable childcare is one of the main barriers to women in the workforce," she said.
Campaign finance reports show that she has raised
Democrat
Of the
A lawyer, his career has been centered around environmental law and renewable energy, and he has worked in government relations advocating on both of these issues. Levin said his professional and political experiences make him the best-qualified candidate.
"My background as a clean energy advocate and a clean energy attorney is important," he said. "I have over a decade of public policy experience."
Levin, who is 39 and from
He returned to
Over the years he has worked on a waste-to-energy pilot program, tax credit for solar and wind and fuel cell technology, the development of hydrogen fuel cell stations (he owns two cars powered by fuel cells) and a state bill that calls for long-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
He began thinking about running after Trump was elected and after he and his wife attended the first Women's March together.
"I think that the most important issue, and it's not a surprise to anybody, is the president and his performance on the job. But health care, the environment, education and immigration, those are the big issues of the day," Levin said.
He said that he supports a national health plan, that Medicare-for-all is popular in the district and that voters want the government to use its large purchasing power to negotiate cheaper prescription drug prices.
Levin has raised
Republican
A newly-retired financial planner,
A member of the council since 2016, Maryott, who is 55 years old, said he's been cast as a "pro-Trump candidate" but said that while he supports the president on some issues, he disagrees on other issues -- and on the president's temperament.
"I've always known one thing about Trump -- this guy has a ferocious work ethic," Maryott said over the phone. "And the results that are coming in and the ambition and determination that's behind his strategy is very, very impressive. The noise? I black that out."
He said he disagrees with the president's so-called "travel ban," which blocked people from several mostly Muslim countries from entering
But he backs the
"For a conservative Republican that was an indefensible vote. We've needed corporate tax relief for decades and even
There needs to be major economic expansion to make up for the revenue shortfalls created by the new tax plan, he said.
"We are going to have to have a period of growth like the early '50s and early '60s," he said.
Health care keeps coming up with the voters, Maryott said. Generally, people fall into two camps: one portion loved their insurance policies as they were before the Affordable Care Act was implemented and another group that wants universal health care and are worried that the insurance exchanges will collapse. He said that there's a place for both.
"We've got to get back to the table on health care...We can have a highly robust, competitive, ambitious private healthcare system" alongside a "modest single payer" system for people of meager means or people who want it, he said.
He credits the ACA for showing that it's vital for insurance programs to cover mental health care and pre-existing conditions, two provisions he called "wonderful wins for the people."
Campaign finance reports show that he has raised
Eight other candidates with low name-ID and few financial resources at their disposal are also running. Polls have shown them with about 1 percent support of likely voters. They include:
Twitter: @jptstewart
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