Another Lesser-Of-Two-Evils Race: Janz vs Nunes

Goodball by Chip Proser

Devin Nunes is certainly one of the worst of TrumpWorld's arch-villains. He's up for reelection in 2 months in California. But not in coastal California. He has a pretty safe Republican seat in the Central Valley. Obama lost the district both times he ran, with around 42% of the vote. Hillary lost to Trump two years ago with around 42% of the vote. The PVI is R+8... not impossible in a wave year, but a very steep climb. The district stretches from the mostly white part of Fresno and it's northern and eastern suburbs down through Dinuba, Visalia and Tulare. The district is now a white-minority district. Almost half the people who live there are Latino and there's a large Asian population as well. The Democratic Party has done a poor job in registering Hispanic voters and Nunes has always coasted to victory with huge margins.

No one knew much about him, though-- only that he was the incumbent. Incumbents almost always win. This year, though... many incumbents, Republican incumbents, aren't going to win. Will Nunes? He's certainly made a spectacle of himself on the national stage and the local media has been very harsh in its coverage of his antics. He's been one of Trump's top enablers, going far beyond his wretched voting record (below):

The FiveThirtyEight.com forecaster gives his reelection chances 19 out of 20-- a 94.6% chance to win. Those odds look beyond steep. But I think FiveThirtyEight is being overly generous to Mr. Nunes.

He has a weak opponent in Andrew Janz, weak but improving. Janz is certainly not the kind of candidate to appeal to a Democratic base. He's very, very conservative-- an NRA kind of guy who's top motivation for running is to protect the Second Amendment and to make sure the death penalty gets used more often. That's what he told me in a phone conversation the first week of his campaign. DC consultants have seen scrubbed him up and he never talks that way any longer. When I spoke with him he didn't know what single-payer or Medicare-For-All were. He's improved since then and is more like a garden variety Democrat now. Is it enough? This week, the San Francisco Chronicle focused in on the race-- or at least in on Janz's new strategy (which has been approved by the DCCC) to persuade voters to support him because the evil DCCC doesn't.

Janz, a Fresno County deputy district attorney, has had plenty of success raising money from Democrats across the country. But he says he’s been almost invisible to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which makes the decisions when it comes to doling out party money to House candidates.

Janz, who was in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood the other day for a fundraiser, said he is more concerned than angry.

“I’m worried about their lack of interest in a most compelling contest” against an opponent who “is universally hated in Democratic circles,” Janz said.

The 44-year-old Nunes, R-Tulare, has drawn the scorn of Democrats as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, a perch from which he’s led the effort to quash Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Party leaders decide which campaigns are likely to succeed and make funding decisions accordingly. Janz fears that Democratic officials have put his race in the too-big-a-reach category.

Democrats are looking at a huge midterm battlefield of more than 100 competitive seats, and all their funding decisions are aimed at flipping the 23 GOP-held seats needed to retake control of the House.

Party officials say the right things about Janz and his campaign.

“The DCCC trusts candidates to run campaigns that work best for their individual districts, which is exactly what Andrew Janz is doing,” said Amanda Sherman, a spokeswoman for the committee. “Andrew Janz has built a strong, independent, Central Valley-focused campaign that will make this race competitive.”

The party’s actions, however, haven’t matched those words. When former President Barack Obama visited Orange County this month for a congressional campaign event, Janz wasn’t one of the seven party hopefuls invited. He’s also not one of the eight Californians on the party’s Red to Blue list of “top-tier candidates” slated to receive organizational and fundraising support.

[Note: DCCC regional vice chair Ted Lieu added Nunes to his fundraising efforts despite Washington and has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Janz]

There are plenty of reasons for Democratic officials to conclude that the 34-year-old Janz, making his first run for public office, is an unlikely candidate to unseat Nunes, who has been invincible at the ballot box since he was first elected in 2002.

The 22nd Congressional District, which includes much of Fresno and Tulare counties, tilts strongly right, with registered Republicans outnumbering Democrats, 42 to 32 percent. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton there, 52 to 43 percent, and Nunes was re-elected with 68 percent of the vote.

The June primary didn’t indicate much had changed. Nunes topped Janz easily, 58 to 32 percent.

Of the major political rating services, only one, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, lists the Central Valley race as competitive. And even it figures the contest as “likely Republican.” The $6.1 million that Nunes had in the bank on June 30 also boosts his chances.

But Janz hasn’t backed down, arguing that he will pay more attention to the district’s concerns than Nunes, who has devoted much of his time to his high-profile job in Washington. Janz had $1.1 million in his campaign account at the end of June and has been one of the Democrats’ strongest online fundraisers, pulling in over $1 million in August alone.

In the heavily agricultural district, water is the main concern, whether it’s clean water for drinking, dams for storage or canals to get farmers the irrigation they need. Trump’s tariffs raised the possibility that growers of such local crops as almonds, grapes, raisins and pistachios could lose overseas sales. And immigration reform is on everyone’s list, Janz said, because Central Valley farmers “want a reliable source of labor and are tired of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids.”

“I’ve been talking to everyone,” he said. Democrats have a special dislike for Nunes for his close ties to Trump, Janz said, and “Republicans are frustrated about Devin Nunes’ inability to get anything done for the district.”

That’s not the way Nunes and his supporters see it. He touts his connections to Trump as a plus for his district. While campaigning for other Republicans, he has warned that a GOP-led House could be the only way to ensure the president’s programs are passed.

In a video spot, Nunes said it’s Janz who ignores his district’s interests by allying with Hollywood and San Francisco Democrats, “the very people who want to cut off the valley’s water supply.” The district supports Trump, Nunes says, but Janz’s main backing comes from “far-left resistance activists.”

An ad on Nunes’ Facebook page talks about how his office helped a family in the Fresno suburb of Clovis with a Veterans Administration problem. His history as a part of a longtime local farming family also plays well.

Democratic officials have no reason to dismiss his chances, Janz says. He points to a survey taken for his campaign this month by Strategies 360 that found Nunes with just a six-point lead, 50 to 44 percent.

“I started out 36 points down, and now the polling shows a continuing trend toward victory,” Janz said.

Janz has also been much more visible in the district than Nunes, who has spent much of the year in Washington.

“We’ve had 130 stops in coffee shops and backyards and 10 town halls,” said Heather Greven, Janz’s campaign manager. “We’re putting boots on the ground, with 250 people in someone’s backyard six nights a week.”

Enthusiasm doesn’t always translate into votes, however, especially in an area where the GOP-- and Nunes-- have held control for so many years.

“We’re under no illusions,” Greven said. “This is a tough district.”

An independent group, the Fight Back California PAC paid for these 3 billboards outside Fresno along Route 99: