More than half a dozen U.S. House districts in California will send a Democrat to Capitol Hill next year no matter what. Party leadership still has a lot riding on the outcome.
Why it matters: Most of these Democrat vs. Democrat runoffs — a quirk of California's election system — are between an establishment candidate and an outsider vowing to make leadership's life hell.
- Democratic Reps. Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui and Jimmy Gomez are all facing well-funded challenges from younger, less establishment-aligned Democrats.
- There are also several Northern California races that feature a pro-leadership Democrat facing off against a more left-leaning rival.
- Sought for comment on this story, Justin Chermol, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), told Axios: "Stop wasting our time with your irrelevant stories that have nothing to do with taking back control of the House of Representatives."
Thompson, a 75-year-old first elected in 1998, faces a challenge from 35-year-old former venture capitalist Eric Jones.
- "I don't think anyone in Democratic leadership today is really doing their job well," Jones said in an interview with Axios.
- Asked if he would vote for Jeffries as speaker, Jones replied: "As of today, I wouldn't vote for any member."
Jones is trying to cobble together a populist, anti-establishment coalition consisting of both progressives and Republicans. He said he does not identify as progressive, telling Axios he prefers "no labels."
- He said that, if elected, he will "have the benefit of independence ... of not taking party money, and I'm not going to vote a party line."
Matsui, 85, is seen as particularly vulnerable after finishing second to Mai Vang in the jungle primary election in June.
- Vang, a progressive Sacramento City Councilmember in her 40s, has positioned herself alongside a new bloc of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-aligned candidates including Darializa Avila Chevalier, Chris Rabb and Melat Kiros.
- She previously signaled to Axios she won't vote for Jeffries as speaker, saying she "cannot support this kind of leadership" and that "we need new leadership and a new direction."
The fight between state Sen. Scott Wiener and San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been particularly bitter.
- Chan has positioned herself to the left of Wiener, a longtime progressive who has come under fire from the pro-Palestinian movement for being insufficiently critical of Israel.
- Wiener told Mission Local he looks "forward to electing Hakeem Jeffries speaker."
- Chan told the outlet that "any candidate for speaker, including Hakeem Jeffries, will have to earn my vote."
Wahab, a progressive former state senator, defeated Hernandez, the more moderate former mayor of Dublin, California, in an August special election to replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell.
- The two are now duking it out for a full term.
- Wahab has already shown her willingness to buck leadership: She defied Pelosi and Jeffries by running in the special election instead of allowing a "caretaker" to run unopposed, according to The Sunday Times.
- The Wahab and Hernandez campaigns did not respond to questions about whether their candidates would vote for Jeffries as speaker.
Gomez has come under fire after the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into him in August over allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies.
- He has been a longtime target of the left, having survived three consecutive primary challenges from Democrat David Kim since 2020 by 2 to 11 percentage points.
- This time he faces a challenge from Angela Gonzales-Torres, a progressive local neighborhood councilor backed by many of the same left-wing groups that support Vang and Wahab.
Gonzales-Torres, asked in an interview with Axios if she would vote for Jeffries as speaker, said she looks forward to "supporting leaders who are not nearly funded by corporate super PACs."
- Gonzales-Torres, pointing to her support from DSA, said she considers herself part of the "national slate" of progressive insurgents such as Avila Chevalier, Rabb and Kiros.
- "Right now [what] we are focusing on is winning this election and hopefully getting to be part of utilizing our bargaining power as this incoming class in Congress," she said.
The bottom line: The larger the bloc of Jeffries skeptics that arrives on Capitol Hill in January, the worse a time Democratic leadership will have.
- That could be tempered to a large degree by the size of Democrats' potential majority, but, as Axios previously reported, many red-seat candidates are also maintaining their independence from leadership.
- Still, few Democrats think Jeffries will ultimately be denied the speakership. The fights that come after are more uncertain.