CA-21, CA-10: On Sunday, attorney Emilio Huerta announced he was dropping his bid against GOP Rep. David Valadao in the 21st District, a Central Valley seat that stretches from outside of Fresno to Bakersfield. The Fresno Bee soon reported that engineer T.J. Cox would announce that he would drop his own bid against GOP Rep. Jeff Denham in the 10th District and would instead take on Valadao, though Cox has said nothing publicly yet. (The 10th is also in the Central Valley, but it does not border the 21st.) The filing deadline is on Friday.
Huerta, who is the son of legendary labor activist Dolores Huerta, was the Democratic nominee against Valadao on 2016. While Huerta had trouble raising money that cycle, national Democrats began airing ads for him in the final weeks of the contest. However, while Clinton carried the 21st District 55-40, Valadao defeated Huerta 57-43.
Huerta decided to run again, but national Democrats wanted a different candidate. However, they didn't get anyone, and the Los Angeles Times recently reported that Dolores Huerta was discouraging anyone else from getting in (something she emphatically denied). But Emilio Huerta had just $97,000 in the bank at the end of 2017 and the Times wrote that he "essentially went silent for months" after jumping in, so Democrats will be relieved to have him out of the race.
Cox was one of several Democrats challenging Denham in the 10th, a district that both Clinton and Obama carried by about 3 points, so his reported departure shouldn't shake up that contest as dramatically. Cox ran for Congress in 2006 against GOP Rep. George Radanovich in the old and safely red 19th District in 2006, getting just 39 percent of the vote. Cox, whose group has invested in community clinics and alternative energy around the Central Valley, had been doing some self-funding for his bid against Denham, and he ended 2017 with $280,000 on-hand.
However, it's unclear if Cox will have the Democratic side to himself. At the end of December, the National Journal reported that the DCCC was talking to Steve Schilling, who served as CEO of Clinica Sierra Vista, a local chair of health clinics that serve low-income migrant communities. Schilling said nothing publicly about his plans, but he notably retired at the end of January. In any case, we'll have our answer at the end of the week.