- The leading Republican candidates are Vince Fong, who has won support from McCarthy and Trump, as well as Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux.
- In the March 5 primary, Fong and Bordeaux qualified for the November general election, so the district will be led by a Republican in the next Congress.
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On Tuesday, California’s 20th District will choose who replaces Kevin McCarthy in a race that will affect the House Republican Party’s slim majority.
Nine candidates are vying to replace the former Bakersfield president. All candidates run on the same ballot, regardless of their party.
There are four Republicans on the ballot, led by Vince Fong, who has the support of McCarthy as well as Donald Trump, and Mike Boudreaux, Tulare County sheriff and another front-runner.
If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, they win the special election. If no one exceeds this threshold, the top two voters will advance to a runoff on May 22.
Polls will close at 8 p.m. local time, and the winner of tonight’s special election will help strengthen the narrow Republican majority in the House.
Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck announced he would leave Congress on Friday, days after the California race, causing a headache for Speaker Mike Johnson as he struggles in an unruly conference.
McCarthy resigned from Congress in December, two months after being ousted from the presidency.
There are four Republicans on the ballot, led by Vince Fong, who has the support of McCarthy as well as Donald Trump.
Regardless of the outcome, the district is assured of representation in a future Republican Congress. In the March 5 primaries, Fong and Bordeaux advanced to the November general election.
Republicans currently hold the narrowest majority in the House: They can only afford to lose two votes and pass party-line legislation.
Democrats lined up behind Marisa Wood, who was also their candidate against McCarthy in 2022.
McCarthy resigned from Congress in December, two months after being ousted from the presidency. He represented the district since 2007.
He had been at the helm of the party, first as chief deputy whip, then whip, then majority leader, then leader and chairman of the Republican Party, since 2009.
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux is another favorite
The other Republicans running are Kyle Kirkland and Anna Cohen. The other Democrat is Harmesh Kumar. The three remaining candidates are Ben Dewell, David Fluhart and James Cardoza, all running with no party preference.
Fong, also a Bakersfield native, is a California state assemblyman and former McCarthy aide. But even with a large war chest and the support of a McCarthy-linked super PAC, he couldn’t stop Boudreaux from advancing to the March 5 general election.
Boudreaux won his first election for sheriff-coroner in 2014 with nearly 73% of the vote and ran unopposed in 2022 and 2018.
It could happen that one of the two men wins the seat for the rest of the year and another takes it in January.
The November primary had 11 candidates on the ballot, including seven Republicans.
The Central Valley district is a reliably Republican area — Trump won it by 25 points over Joe Biden in 2020. That same year, McCarthy won re-election against Democrat Kim Mangone by 24 percentage points.
The March 19 special election is expected to see much lower turnout than the March 5 primary without a presidential slate on the ballot.
In the previous election, Fong came in first with about 41% of the vote, and Boudreaux came in second with 25%.