Old dynamics, new hopes are brewing in the race for the open seat in California's 8th District

Sam Metz | Palm Springs Desert Sun

Show Caption Hide Caption Watch: This is how you can register to vote A few basics about registering to vote.

Mammoth Lakes Democrat Chris Bubser knows most congressional candidates don’t leave campaign events and head to campgrounds, but in most other districts, political gatherings aren’t hours from candidates’ homes.

“One time I was in Lone Pine at an event that was ending at 9 o’clock and there was a campground close by, it was summer and I thought it might be easiest to just pop my tent,” Bubser said. “I ended up going home to Mammoth, but, you know, it’s an eight-hour drive from one end of the district to the other.”

Perhaps unlike other congressional candidates ramping up their 2020 campaigns, Bubser, a former health care executive, keeps a tent and sleeping bag in her car because she never knows when she might need it, traversing California’s 33,000 square-mile 8th Congressional District.

The district is the state’s largest and historically one of its most conservative.

In 2016, President Donald Trump won here by more than 15 percentage points. In 2018, it was California’s only congressional district where two Republicans — and no Democrat — advanced from the top-two primary election to the November ballot and spent campaign season fighting over who was more aligned with the president.

In September, less than a year after defeating former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly by 20 percentage points, U.S. Rep. Paul Cook, R-Yucca Valley, announced he would not seek a fifth term in Congress, leaving the seat open for the first time since 2012 and priming the district for a competitive race.

Despite their historic struggles and Trump’s popularity, Democrats say the near parity between registered Democrats and Republicans in the district make a path to victory possible. With 32.4% of the district’s voters registered as Democrats, 35.7% as Republicans and 24% as “No Party Preference,” the district’s profile is similar to some of the California congressional districts Democrats flipped in 2018.

Multiple Republicans and Democrats have already announced their intention to run to replace Cook. Five hopefuls have opened committees with the Federal Election Commission and six other potential candidates have pulled papers with the Registrar of Voters in San Bernardino, Inyo and Mono counties.

On the Republican side, Donnelly, who challenged Cook in 2016 and 2018, will again face a Republican with backing from most of the district’s Republican politicians, Big Bear Assemblyman Jay Obernolte. Marine Corps veteran and former professional football player Jeremy Staat has also opened a committee with the FEC and Victorville's Jerry Laws pulled papers with the San Bernardino County Registrar to file candidacy.

On the Democratic side, Bubser has attempted to coalesce party supporters behind her candidacy, winning over the two Democrats who split the party's vote base in 2018, Rita Ramirez and Marge Doyle. Bubser is the only Democrat to have opened a committee with the FEC, but several others have pulled papers at the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters, including Victorville City Councilwoman Blanca Gomez, Apple Valley’s James Ellars and Bob Conaway and Big Bear Lake's Charles Peterson.

As of the end of September, about six months from the March 3, 2020 top-two primary, Bubser had raised more than $356,000 and had more than $227,000 on hand.

Obernolte had raised $3,000 and personally lent his campaign $100,000. But he will likely be able to draw from the contributors who funded his prior Assembly campaigns. He has $145,000 in his state campaign account leftover from past races. Of those contributions, federal election rules will allow him to transfer funds from individuals but not corporate sources.

Staat had raised $19,000 and Donnelly had raised less than $2,100.

Ideology aside, candidates from both parties say the district’s size and rural character make reaching out to voters and vying for their support a different proposition than it is in California’s other congressional districts.

“These are people who live in more rural areas because they value their own personal freedom — and that’s not to say that in a partisan way,” Obernolte said.

He declared his candidacy almost immediately after Cook announced his retirement and has since lined up endorsements from the departing congressman, most of the district’s other high-profile Republicans, including San Bernardino Sheriff Jim McMahon and Yucca Valley Assemblyman Chad Mayes, and several Democrats, including San Bernardino County Supervisor Josie Gonzales.

He said he planned to campaign primarily on issues that have tangible local impacts, like the high costs of living, public safety and economic growth rather than fixate on Congress’s impeachment inquiry or other charged partisan debates that he believes turn off district voters.

Like the 8th Congressional District, Obernolte’s 33rd Assembly District is similarly vast, spanning more than 18,000 square miles from Victorville to the lower end of Death Valley National Park. Running for office in such expansive inland California districts, he said, requires balancing the concerns of voters in cities with more than 100,000 residents, such as Victorville, with the concerns of voters who populate the district’s rural desert and mountain regions.

“It can’t be understated how difficult it is to represent a district like ours,” he said. “The challenge you always have is, How do you reach potential voters when your district is so vast? You have to commit to using different mediums.”

Congressional campaigns typically advertise using a combination of mail fliers, television commercials, radio spots and digital ads, depending on their budgets and the cost of advertising in their local media markets.

With one part of the district in the Los Angeles media market and another in the Reno, Nevada media market, campaigns said reaching out to voters via television spots would likely play a less prominent role than digital advertising, direct mail to voters and radio.

Donnelly, Obernolte's Republican challenger, said what his campaign spends on advertising and outreach will balance strategy and affordability given the size of the district and his expectation that Obernolte will raise more campaign funding.

"You have to look where the votes are — the vast majority are, which is in San Bernardino County," he said. "The northern areas may not have as many votes but they have a much more affordable media market. Radio in Mono and Inyo counties are much more affordable."

Unlike Obernolte, Donnelly said his campaign would focus on federal immigration policy and supporting President Trump. He said he planned to use headline-grabbing billboards much like he did in 2018, when he posted a billboard protesting Cook's vote against an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that proposed banning transgender service members from serving in the military.

Earlier this month, he purchased two billboards that address Congress's impeachment inquiry that say "Join me in praying for President Trump! Godspeed — Tim Donnelly for Congress."

Bubser's strategy up until this point has primarily been to raise the necessary funds to increase her name recognition in the district and prepare for a 2020 campaign of larger scale than those run by past Democratic candidates.

Bubser’s $350,000 in campaign contributions pales in comparison to candidates running in battleground districts, for example, in Orange County. But it’s more than any Democrat has raised in the 8th District in prior elections. In Sept. 2017, one year before the 2018 midterm elections, the district's leading Democrat Marge Doyle had not reported any campaign contributions.

"The candidates tried but it's hard when you don't have what you need," she said.

On the campaign trail, she’s focused on expanding access to affordable healthcare and protecting the environment, both which she believes will win her support from voters regardless of their party affiliation.

Charlie Baran, the Bubser campaign’s political director, said unlike Doyle, who won pockets of support throughout the sprawling district, Bubser has focused mainly on the Victor Valley, where 400,000 of the district's roughly 700,000 residents live.

“We haven't seen a strong Democrat run in a general election, frankly, ever,” Baran said. “You can have broad support in other parts of the district, but if you don't focus on the Victor Valley, there's not so much of a path."

Polling and prior election results haven't painted a full picture of the district, he added, because Democrats haven't had support from the state party or enough volunteers to show the extent of the party's support.

As he explained the how the Democratic Party's infrastructure, energy and slate of candidates running for lower office would outlast the election regardless of if Bubser won or lost, she interrupted.

"No! We're winning. I hate to lose," she said.

Loading...

Sam Metz covers politics. Reach him at samuel.metz@desertsun.com or on Twitter @metzsam.