Ms. Gomez Reyes, an experienced labor lawyer and childhood farm-worker who is a native of the district, has recently been endorsed by Digby & Howie Klein & their Blue America PAC, whom she told she is:
proud to be running as the progressive in this race... [and] is going to not just defend, but expand, their Social Security benefits.
The main Centrist competitor in this Blue district will be the same candidate whose 2012 weak performance enabled 2 Republicans to face off in the general election, the DCCC-anointed
Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar … a self-described moderate Democrat, [who] said he would work across party lines in Washington
…when
announcing his 2012 run, but in his 2014 announcement appeared to be setting a somewhat more partisan tone (as linked
here).
Besides Gomez Reyes on Aguilar’s Left, candidate Joe Baca seems to mainly be on Aguilar’s Right, at least on gun control. Baca’s website omits the usual list of issue positions in favor of vague legislative accomplishments, and tries to retain the aura of the incumbency that he once held in a neighboring district.
One of these three Democrats needs to get more than 25% of primary votes in order to avoid the risk of another 2-Republican general election. It would be nice to see independent polling a few months before the June primary, in order to give the third-place Democrat an opportunity to withdraw if there appears to be much risk of repeating the 2012 fiasco.
Ms. Gomez Reyes, who has Emily’s List among her endorsers and contributors, seems to be raising money reasonably well for a Progressive. Meanwhile Aguilar has been endorsed by Dianne Feinstein, apparently as part of the DCCC’s rallying of the Democratic establishment. Aguilar’s and former Congressman Baca’s competition for endorsements of sitting Congresspeople, some of whom have withdrawn endorsements (which Baca attributes to DCCC pressure) lends spice to this race, and could help remind local voters that there is only one “outsider” running in a race that
is about more than providing another career politician with the next step on his professional ladder.