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May 31st Len’s Political Note #730 Josh Harder California 09
2026 General Election
A common complaint about the Democratic Party is that it is elitist. Its leadership is filled with people who went to Ivy League colleges or their equivalent. They may be great for the kind of work someone can get hired to do in Washington DC or New York. But electability? Democrats are just not down to earth enough to get elected.
Look at Josh Harder in that context. He has a BA in political science from Stanford. After that, he got an MBA from Harvard plus an MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. His wife Pamela is the same. They met at Stanford where she got her BA. She, too, has an MBA from Harvard and a MPP from the Kennedy School. What’s more, she has a perfect job for a member of the elite. She is the Executive Director of the Goodman Philanthropies. As for Josh Harder, initially he went to work for Bessemer’s venture capital firm’s New York office. Promoted to Vice President, he was moved to the firm’s San Francisco office.
Then he stopped. He and Pamela moved to Turlock — the Central Valley town where he was born, where his great, great grandfather started a peach farm. Josh Harder found a new job – teaching business at Modesto Junior College.
Despite his electability handicap, Josh Harder keeps getting elected to Congress. If he returns in 2026, he will be entering his fifth term as a Member of Congress. Some of his races been close. In 2018, he defeated the incumbent Republican (who called him Bay area Harder) by 9,990 votes. In 2020, he won by more than 30,000 votes. In 2022, after redistricting, by almost 17,000 votes. In 2024, he won by 7,973 votes – which is why he is on this list of the closest races.
California 09 is centered by Stockton. With a population of 320,000 in 2020, it was America’s 60th largest city. With 140,000 people, Latinos were slightly less than half the population. Asians were the next largest group with 67,000. Whites were just under 55,000; Blacks not quite 40,000. If Donald Trump were to outlaw diversity, he would have to outlaw Stockton. US News & World Report rated it as America’s most diverse city.
Despite its growth (tripled in size since 1970), it is neither prosperous nor safe – 7th in auto thefts in the country, 10th most dangerous. In 2021, Forbes (a magazine for the genuinely and wannabe elite) rated Stockton the 8th most miserable city in the country.
Considered as a whole, the district is not much different from Stockton. It is more than 40% Latino, whites are second with nearly 30% of the district, Asians third with more than 15% and Blacks fourth with fewer than 10% of the population. Its household median income is above the national figure of about 77,000, but well below California’s median figure of $95,000. With redistricting, California 09 has become Trumpish. In 2022, Republicans running for controller, treasurer, attorney general, and secretary of state carried the district. In 2024, Trump carried the district 49-48, baseball player and Republican US Senate candidate Steve Garvey carried the district 51-49.
Thirty-one years old when he was elected initially, he has demonstrated no interest in higher office. He has focused on Congress, serving on the Agriculture Committee (appropriate for his district) and on the Appropriation committee (appropriate for every district). In his official website, he describes his top four issues as
- Health care. (He says it is unacceptable that 40,000+ are uninsured in the district and would have to pay large sums for life saving medications. He promises to fight to expand health insurance coverage.
- Jobs and Education. Drawing on his experience in business, he ties good paying jobs to education and both to making the region a “good place to rasie a family and do business.”
- He opposes plans to take water from the area, supports storage for dry periods, innovative technologies to improve water systems, and better infrastructure.
- He argues the importance of making federal agricultural policy work for the area, not just for grain growing places.
In his campaign website, he is introduced wearing jeans and touts the diversity of his supporters. But he can’t escape being a member of the elite – not from the Republican leadership at any rate. The National Republican Congressional Committee criticized his compplaints about the wealthy avoiding taxes, The NRCC demanded that Josh Harder stop “pretending he serves the Central Valley”….and “dump his Cayman Island accounts and apologize to Valley families for enriching himself at their expense.”
As the radio personality used to say….Here’s the rest of the story. While his financial disclosures show he had between $16,000 and $65,000 in a fund from before he was elected to Congress and earned (and presumably paid taxes on) between $5,000 and $15,000 from those funds in 2022 (the year this “scandal” was uncovered). These funds are controlled by his former employer, Bessemer Venture Associates. He has nothing to do with where the funds are kept and has been open about his holdings and his earnings. If that’s the worst anyone can find about Josh Harder, he just might escape from being categorized as a member of the elite.
Javier Lopez, Republican mayor of Ceres, population just under 50,000, has announced his candidacy. Hhis announcement is too recent to have reported funds raised. Discourage him. Josh Harder is doing a pretty good job of it. He raised about $750,000 in the first quarter of 2025. He retained funds from his previous race, so entered the second quarter with more than $2 million for his race. DONATE. A little bit more helps discourage Republican candidates.
Other Congressional candidates with narrow wins reported on so far:
California 13 Former Assemblyman Adam Gray flipped this seat with a 187 vote win. DONATE. His likely Republican opponent is Javier Lopez, mayor of the small city of Ceres. So far, Adam Gray has raised $400,000. Lopez announced too recently to have reported for the first quarter. See Len’s Political Note #716
California 45 Attorney Derek Tran flipped this seat with a 653 vote win. We do not yet know who his Republican opponent will be, though some are urging Michelle Steel to run to get her seat back. She closed the first quarter with nearly a million dollars on hand, double what Derek Tran had. DONATE to Derek Tran. See Len’s Political Note #717
Maine 02 Incumbent Jared Golden retained his seat with a 2,706 win. Former Governor Paul LePage, a kind of pre-Trump Trump-like figure has announced his candidacy. LePage does not have first quarter fund raising to report while Jared Golden reported about $450,000 available on March 31. DONATE. Jared Golden is facing a man with a following, especially in this Congressional district which Trump carried and earned an electoral college vote. See Len’s Political Note #719
Ohio 09 Incumbent Marcy Kaptur retained her seat with a 2,832 vote win. We do not yet know who her Republican opponent will be, though some think her 2024 opponent Derek Merrin will run again. Marcy Kaptur raised a modest $250,000+ in the first quarter, but had $600,000 available on March 31 to begin the campaign. DONATE to Marcy Kaptur. See Len’s Political Note #718
Texas 34 Incumbent Vicente Gonzalez retained his seat with a 5,237 win. We do not yet know who his Republican opponent will be. Vicente Gonzalez is getting himself ready. He has more than $500,000 cash available. Help him stay ahead. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #720
North Carolina 01 Incumbent Don Davis retained his seat with a 6,307 win. We do not yet know who his Republican opponent will be though multi-millionaire Sandy Roberson is a possibility. Don Davis had a little more than $500,000 available on March 31. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #721
California 27. Space travel advocate and corporate and governmental leader George Whitesides flipped a Republican seat with a margin of 7,990 votes. We do not yet know who his opponent will be and early money could discourage strong opponents. He is a formidable fundraiser himself and entered the second quarter of fund raising for 2026 with approximately $850,000. Join up. DONATE. Help increase his resources. See Len’s Political Note #726
New York 19 Josh Riley, an attorney on behalf of Democratic causes, returned home to run for Congress. He lost by 4,495 votes in 2022, but flipped the seat by 8,357 votes in 2024. We do not know who his opponent will be. Josh Riley raised $750,000 in the first quarter of the campaign and, on March 31, began the campaign with nearly $700,000. He needs more. In order to win in 2024, he outspent the incumbent $9.5 million to $5.5 million. Outside spending was more even — $16 million on behalf of Josh Riley, $15 million on behalf of his opponent. DONATE to Josh Riley. See Len’s Political Note #727
Ohio 13 Emilia Sykes represents Akron as her mother and father did in the state legislature for more than 40 years. She has, as her opponent, former State Senator Kevin Coughlin, who she defeated by 8,542 votes in 2024. She raised less than $300,000 in the first quarter of this year, the amount she had on hand on March 31. That is more than her prospective opponent who had less than $50,000 on March 31. That disproportion resembles the 2024 race where Emilia Sykes raised $5 million to Kevin Coughlin’s $1.5 million. Outside spending also favored Emilia Sykes — $9 million to $7.5 million in round numbers. DONATE. Keep her lead. Help her win.
New York 04 Laura Gillen represents southeastern Long Island. Neither the Republicans nor we know who will oppose her in November, 2026. She won by 8,603 votes in 2024 and a couple of Republicans have expressed interest. She raised nearly $600,000 in the first quarter of 2025, spent some of it, and began the second quarter with $475,000. DONATE now. Discourage Republicans from running. Convince them she will raise at least the $7 million she raised in 2024 and outsiders will spend the $15 million they spent on her behalf in that previous race.
GIVE OF YOURSELF AS WELL.
Join peaceful demonstrations. I hope you found a place to march on May 1. Be prepared to march on June 14. I do not suggest you go to Washington for Trump’s birthday parade and stand in front of a tank, Tiananmen Square-like. Look around. Many communities have weekly demonstrations against Trump. Find one and join. Call your Senators and Congress Members. Remind them that Trump should not be kowtowing to Qatar for a gift airplane or that Trump should not be attempting to close down PBS or that Trump should not be supporting huge tax cuts for the wealthy or sharp reductions in Medicaid. Or any other of Trump’s depredations such as arresting Members of Congress doing their job of Congressional oversight.
