11th Assembly District candidate Dave Miller. (Robinson Kuntz/Daily Republic)

FAIRFIELD — Challenger Dave Miller’s roots in Republican politics reach back to when he was 8 years old in New York and helped with Richard Nixon’s campaign for president in 1968.

That effort won him an invitation to Nixon’s inauguration, an event Miller missed because of his youth.

Miller’s parents were active in the GOP and knew Nelson Rockefeller, the Fairfield resident recounted.

His June 7 run against incumbent Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, in the 11th Assembly District will benefit from a pro-outsider mood among voters and strong opposition in Contra Costa County to Frazier, Miller said.

The candidate Name: Dave Miller

Age: 52

Education: Received a health and human services policy internship in sophomore year of college and internship lasted 28 years. Fifteen of those years specialized in assisting the execution of social investigations and subsequent prosecution of clients deemed to have committed welfare fraud of any kind. The previous 13 years were spent in human services finance, as well as administrative assistant to the director of finance for health.

Current occupation: Managing general partner of Span Corp., a political consulting firm.

Endorsements: Former RNC Chairman Micheal Steele; Law Enforcement Officers for Media Accountability; Niger Innis, spokesman of the Congress on Racial Equality; U.S. Senate candidate Tom Del Beccaro; Former Assemblyman Dan Logue; Former congressional candidate Rick Tubb; radio and television commentator Rick Amato; Solano, Sacramento and Contra Costa Republican Parties; American Independent Party.

Issues: Making energy less expensive in California, cutting his salary as a state assemblyman, massive regulatory reform, strong support for the 2nd Amendment, voter ID program, opposing high-speed rail.

“They want him out so bad,” Miller said.

He likened the discontent to the scene in the 1974 movie “Young Frankenstein” when villagers storm the castle.

Frazier faces a test in 2016 that he didn’t get two years ago, Miller said.

“He had a college student up against him,” Miller said.

This time Frazier is running against a full-time candidate, Miller said.

The Republican candidate is optimistic about winning the Assembly seat and said the district has been trending more conservative.

“They’re tired of politics the way it’s being played out,” Miller said.

Miller said tax increases and political bullying are helping change the district’s political makeup. He has criticized the 100 percent rating Frazier received from Planned Parenthood.

“The Planned Parenthood ratings may as well be called the ‘Who’s a friend of Planned Parenthood list,’ ” Miller said last November. “The sooner federal funding is seriously re-examined for Planned Parenthood, the better off we’ll all be.”

“Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act,” he said, “isn’t Planned Parenthood a redundant medical service to taxpayers?

“I would rather comment on the ‘F’ score he received from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association,” Miller said of Frazier, “or the failing 37-percent rating he got from Caltax.org, another taxpayers association.”

Miller’s campaign website includes the assertion that, “Right now we have someone in office that does not represent our interests. Someone who believes building a train, that won’t see its first passenger for over three decades, is more important than dealing with our water crisis.”

The Fairfield resident worked for 30 years in the Department of Social Services for New York State.

California’s 11th Assembly District includes portions of Solano, Contra Costa and Sacramento counties, to include Fairfield, Suisun City, Rio Vista, Vacaville and Travis Air Force Base.

Reach Ryan McCarthy at 427-6935 or [email protected].