On election night June 7th, California Democrats were generally pleased up and down the ballot. The U.S. Senate race would be between 2 Democrats in November - Kamala Harris (my personal favorite) and Loretta Sanchez.
We had strong preformances by incumbent Democrats (with the exception of Ami Bera (D-CD 7)). We also had good performances in races where Democrats are contesting open seats like Salud Carbajal (D-CD 24) and congressional district 44, where again 2 Democrats will face each other in November - Isadore Hall (D-CD 44) and Nanette Barragan (D-CD 44). We even had Doug Applegate (D-CD 49) put up the best election results for a Democrat running against Darrell Issa (R-CA) EVER (that's a winnable race - check Doug Applegate out at his website).
The one HUGE exception was California congressional district 21. Emilio Jesus Huerta (D-CD 21) is the son of legendary labor activist Dolores Huerta (co-founder of National Farmworkers Association, which became the United Farm Workers). Emilio Huerta, a civil rights attorney, has deep ties to the labor movement and other Democratic constituencies throughout California and district 21.
The other Democrat in the race was Daniel Parra (D-CD 21), an Air Force veteran and Fowler City Mayor Pro-Term. Daniel Parra is NOT a DINO and was almost endorsed by Bakersfield Democrats in this race. BUT Parra is weaker at fundraising than Huerta. Parra's fundraising and Huerta's ties to the district leads Democrats to believe that Huerta will be a better candidate against Valadao.
And the Republicans agree that Huerta will be the stronger candidate. As evidence here's Valadao's (R) ad trying to increase turnout for Parra (D) so that he won't have to face Emilio Huerta in the fall:
x YouTube VideoAll this is why California Democrats were so disappointed when Daniel Parra was leading Emilio Huerta by 467 votes for the second spot, on the ballot in November (Valadao got the first spot)
(Report on June 8, 2016) (Source: Hanford Sentinel)
Candidate Votes Percent| Emilio Jesus Huerta (Party Preference: DEM) | 10,116 | 20.4% | |
| Daniel Parra (Party Preference: DEM) | 10,583 | 21.4% | |
| * | David Valadao (Party Preference: REP) | 28,722 | 58.2% |
But when I looked this evening I found that currently Emilio Huerta leads Daniel Parra by 797 votes:
(Reporting as of June 16, 2016, 4:58 PM PDT)
Candidate Votes Percent| Emilio Jesus Huerta (Party Preference: DEM) | 14,477 | 22.8% | |
| Daniel Parra (Party Preference: DEM) | 13,680 | 21.5% | |
| * | David Valadao (Party Preference: REP) | 35,342 | 55.7% |
This is really great news and I hope that Emilio Huerta does become the Democratic nominee for California's Congressional District 21. There are still 1,339,438 mail-in and provisional ballots uncounted throughout California. California's Congressional District 21 is made up of parts of Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. Those counties have a total of 34,355 ballots still uncounted. So Emilio Huerta is not definitely on the ballot in November, but some in the media have started to call Emilio Huerta the Democratic challenger to Rep. David Valadao (R-CA).
Also note that Valadao's percentage of the vote had dropped 3 percent.
Please contribute $3 to Emilio Huerta to defeat David Valadao and help Democrats take the House.
