With just over a month until California’s March 5 primary election, Rep. John Duarte (R-Hughson) and former Assemblymember Adam Gray (D-Merced) are locked in another tight battle for the right to represent California’s 13th congressional district.
However, the real battle will happen in the fall since, according to California’s open primary rules, the top two vote-getters — regardless of party affiliation — advance to the November general election.
Duarte and Gray are the only two candidates running for the seat.
As it stands now, the race is closer than two coats of paint, and it could decide which party controls the House of Representatives starting in 2025.
Three different polling services — the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter; Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales; Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball — have listed the race as a “toss-up” for four consecutive weeks.
The 13th congressional district was created prior to the 2022 election. Had it existed in the 2020 general election, it would’ve gone for President Biden by 11 percentage points, according to ballotpedia.com.
On Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the party’s campaign mechanism in the House — announced that Gray had been added to its ‘Red to Blue’ program, signaling that the DCCC is fully invested in helping Gray flip the seat.
Red to Blue is a DCCC program that arms top-tier candidates with organizational and fundraising support, strategic guidance, staff resources, candidate trainings, and more.
Duarte defeated Gray in November 2022 by just 564 votes, the second-closest congressional race in the nation then, giving the GOP a slim margin in the House.
That slim margin has already gotten slimmer with the departure of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and the expulsion of Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.).
And Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who defeated Adam Frisch by 554 votes in 2022, who has run headlong into a spate of controversies during her sophomore term, is switching from Colorado’s 3rd congressional district to the 4th, is polling badly there and appears vulnerable.
Currently the House has 219 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and three vacant seats.
Other local politicians up for re-election this cycle are Rep. Tom McClintock (R-El Dorado Hills), who splits representation of Turlock with Duarte, and Assemblymember Juan Alanis (R-Modesto).
McClintock defeated Mike Barkley (D-Manteca) in the 2022 general election with more than 61 percent of the vote. Barkley is back again for another try in ’24. They’ll be joined in the March 5 primary by business owner Steve Wozniak, who lists no party preference.
Alanis, who defeated attorney Jessica Self (D-Modesto) in 2022, will take on Self in another rematch, as they are the only two vying for the seat. Alanis defeated Self with 58 percent of the vote two years ago.
Vito Chiesa will run for re-election for the District 2 Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors seat. He will run unopposed.
On the Turlock City Council, the seats of vice-mayor Pam Franco (District 4) and Rebecka Monez (District 2) are up for re-election, but the filing period to run isn’t until July.
Ryan Taylor, who previously ran for Turlock City Council in 2022, has announced that he is running for the Stanislaus Republican Central Committee.
Also running for Stanislaus RCC are Wendy Bosshardt, Thomas J. Pannier, Christan Santos, Patrick Shields and Kelly Thompson.
