Early on a Saturday morning at Rawley Duntley Park in Lancaster — the high-desert solar blazing — George Whitesides, a Democrat operating for Congress, was encircled by dozens of cheering, noisemaker-blasting volunteers.
“I actually wish to make it possible for even the astronauts on the market can hear his identify!” Nadia Abrica, an organizing director with the state Democratic Occasion, shouted, pointing to the sky. “George! George! George!”
“Are you guys feeling fired up?” Whitesides requested the group. “Are you feeling able to go? … Are we going to vary the Home of Representatives?”
“Sure!” they screamed.
George Whitesides’ supporters collect at a marketing campaign occasion in Lancaster.
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Occasions)
Whitesides, a former NASA chief of employees beneath President Obama, is operating to unseat Rep. Mike Garcia, the thrice-elected Republican incumbent, in California’s hotly contested twenty seventh Congressional District in northern L.A. County. The race can be essential in figuring out whether or not Republicans keep their slim majority within the U.S. Home.
Democrats, using the nationwide enthusiasm unleashed by Vice President Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race, be ok with their possibilities to flip the district.
“You are feeling the distinction — and what actually helped is the re-energizing once we came upon about Biden dropping out,” stated Alvarez Marcos, 61, a volunteer for Whitesides. “We’re constructing off that.”
However after leaving the pep-rally vibe on the park to knock on doorways at a close-by condo complicated, Whitesides spoke with middle-of-the-road voters who made one factor abundantly clear: Profitable this purple suburban district won’t be simple.
“I’m not a Democrat,” stated a younger girl who was the primary to open her door. “Are you for open borders?”
“No, ma’am,” Whitesides stated, after making an attempt to summarize his message — largely about creating native jobs — in about 90 seconds. “We’re making an attempt to create a safe border for our nation.”
On this presidential election 12 months dominated by hyperpartisan nationwide points — together with immigration — each Whitesides, 50, and Garcia, 48, try to forged themselves as a average and their opponent as a political hardliner.
“Persons are excited to carry constructive change to the district, and so they’re actually excited to beat Mike Garcia, who they view as this excessive man who doesn’t join or match with the oldsters in our district,” Whitesides instructed The Occasions.
Rep. Mike Garcia is seeking to maintain the Antelope Valley seat he has held since 2020. The race can be essential in figuring out whether or not Republicans keep their Home majority.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Occasions)
Whitesides calls Garcia a pro-Trump sycophant and highlights the congressman’s vote towards certifying the 2020 presidential election outcomes after the Jan. 6 revolt, in addition to his vote towards President Biden’s $1-trillion infrastructure invoice.
Whitesides additionally factors to Garcia’s anti-abortion file. Garcia was among the many GOP congressional members who signed an amicus transient urging the Supreme Court docket to overturn Roe v. Wade and, in 2021, co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which quantities to a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions. (Garcia later indicated he may help such exceptions for rape, incest or threats to the mom’s well being — a departure from the invoice. He didn’t sponsor a reintroduced model.)
Garcia’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to requests for remark for this story.
However his backers try to color Whitesides as a far-left mega-donor making an attempt to make use of his private wealth to purchase a congressional seat.
As a first-time candidate, Whitesides has no voting file to scrutinize. So, Republicans have zeroed in on his a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in contributions to progressive candidates and causes.
Ben Petersen, a spokesman for the Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee, stated in a press release that Garcia, a former Navy pilot, “has led a lifetime of service, from flying fighter jets in fight to his mission in Congress of reducing inflation and defending public security.”
“Voters can simply spot the distinction with excessive George Whitesides, who backed laws elevating the price of residing and bankrolled radical activists attacking police and dismantling regulation and order,” he added, referencing Whitesides’ help of Equality California, an LGBTQ+ rights group that outstanding conservative fundraisers have dubbed a defund-the-police group. (Whitesides has touted his endorsement by Equality California.)
About an hour’s drive north of solidly liberal downtown Los Angeles, the twenty seventh Congressional District stretches from fast-growing Santa Clarita to the Kern County line. It consists of the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, in addition to rural desert cities akin to Acton and Pearblossom.
With its shut proximity to Edwards Air Pressure Base, the area has deep ties to the army and aerospace trade, as mirrored by the identify of its just lately disbanded Minor League Baseball group, the Lancaster JetHawks.
As soon as staunchly conservative, the district has turn out to be extra favorable to Democrats, with the inhabitants rising youthful and extra numerous as L.A. residents moved in for extra inexpensive housing. Redistricting after the 2020 census made CA-27 even bluer by excising conservative Simi Valley.
Simply over 41% of registered voters are Democrats, and about 30% are Republicans. Greater than a fifth are independents, a wildcard that makes the district considerably unpredictable.
The district voted for Biden in 2020. However within the 2022 gubernatorial race, it backed Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle over Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Although his district has extra registered Democrats than Republicans, frustrations over California’s excessive price of residing have given GOP Rep. Mike Garcia an edge in earlier campaigns.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Occasions)
The district has been on the entrance strains of partisan warfare since Katie Hill, a millennial Democrat, unseated the Republican incumbent in 2018, solely to resign lower than a 12 months later amid a intercourse scandal. Garcia gained the seat in a particular election and retained it in two subsequent elections, thrice defeating the identical Democratic challenger, former state Assemblywoman Christy Smith.
Within the 2020 common election, Garcia defeated Smith by simply 333 votes. He gained by 12,732 votes through the subsequent midterm election, when fewer folks forged ballots.
The Cook dinner Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, calls this 12 months’s election a toss-up.
“If you’ve run an organization that launches people into house on a test-flight program, you kinda get used to being concerned in high-stakes issues,” stated Whitesides, the previous chief government of Mojave-based Virgin Galactic. “We’ve received to flip the Home so we will shield all these hard-won beneficial properties in healthcare and local weather and jobs.”
“The Republican caucus proper now’s completely dysfunctional,” he added. “I”m making an attempt to carry, like, truly getting stuff achieved again into focus. Wouldn’t that be nice? Make the Congress work once more.”
Lawrence Becker, a political scientist at Cal State Northridge, stated it’s “going to be a troublesome election for Garcia.”
Most voters “are going to the polls with the presidential election on their minds,” he added. Trump is deeply unpopular in California, and having him on the high of the ticket “turns into a little bit of a headwind that Mike Garcia has to face.”
Nonetheless, frustrations over California’s excessive price of residing and gasoline costs — potent points for the various residents on this district who make the lengthy commute to L.A. for work — have beforehand given Garcia an edge. He simply gained final spring’s three-way major election with 55% of the vote, whereas Whitesides received 33%.
State GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson stated the truth that Republicans are capable of be so aggressive in a district the place Democrats have a big registration benefit exhibits how a lot voters “are getting sick and bored with what California Democrats have been serving as much as them.”
Each events are pouring cash into the race.
The Congressional Management Fund, a brilliant PAC that helps Republicans operating for the Home, is planning an $18.2-million advert blitz within the L.A. space this fall, with a give attention to the twenty seventh district.
Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the tremendous PAC, stated Garcia has a novel biography that resonates in his district. As a Navy pilot, the congressman flew in additional than 30 fight missions throughout Operation Iraqi Freedom earlier than spending 11 years as an government with the protection contractor Raytheon.
“California voters stay fed up with rising crime, chaos at our border and skyrocketing prices — all brought on by Democrats’ progressive single-party rule,” Parella stated in a press release. “The Home majority runs by means of California, and CLF is committing vital sources right here this fall.”
George Whitesides introduces himself to Sean and Megan Holst. “It’s purported to be extra inexpensive within the Antelope Valley,” Megan says. “I assumed we had an honest earnings, and it’s nonetheless — it’s exhausting.”
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Occasions)
In the meantime, Whitesides — who loaned his marketing campaign greater than $1 million — is outraising his opponent. As of June 30, Whitesides’ marketing campaign had $3.9 million within the financial institution, in keeping with the Federal Election Fee. Garcia’s marketing campaign had $2.2 million available.
Whitesides’ marketing campaign is seizing on accusations that Garcia hid his sale of as much as $50,000 in Boeing inventory in August 2020, simply earlier than the Home Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, of which he was a member, launched a scathing report in regards to the firm.
Based on the Day by day Beast, which first reported the sale, Garcia missed the 45-day deadline to reveal the sale and filed paperwork solely after narrowly profitable his election that November.
A spokesman for Garcia’s marketing campaign instructed Politico that Garcia had not seen the report earlier than it grew to become public and that his failure to reveal his inventory sale was an accident.
After leaving Rawley Duntley Park that late-July Saturday, Whitesides — who has embraced his nerdy-dad vibe — donned a white NASA ball cap and brandished a 50-SPF spray can of sunscreen for his canvass of the condo complicated.
In every transient interplay, he stated that, whereas operating Virgin Galactic, he created 700 native jobs and that he was centering his marketing campaign round job creation.
Propped in a single condo window was a license plate that learn, EPDMLGY. Whitesides bounded as much as the door, saying, “Epidemiology! Come on, that’s my voter.”
“I’m a average Democrat,” he stated when Nancy Welsh, a 63-year-old pharmaceutical administrative assistant, opened the door. “I labored for NASA, so I’m a giant science and details type of particular person.”
When Whitesides requested what points had been vital to her, she laughed and stated: “Don’t get me began.”
He stopped Megan and Sean Holst, a married couple of their early 30s, as they walked their golden retriever, Cosmo. “I do know you from my dad!” stated Megan, whose father planted a Whitesides yard signal exterior his house on a dust street in Acton.
Megan stated she helps abortion rights and didn’t like Garcia’s file on the problem. However the couple — she is a scientific lab scientist and he’s a programmer — are fairly average, she stated. Principally, they care about native points, akin to crime and price of residing. They’ve lived within the condo complicated for years and hope to sometime have the ability to afford a home.
“It’s purported to be extra inexpensive within the Antelope Valley,” she stated. “I assumed we had an honest earnings, and it’s nonetheless — it’s exhausting.”
Whitesides handed her his marketing campaign flier. She stated she would take into account it.
