2 toss-up races in California push Latino voters to the front lines of the battle to control the House

Two starkly different House candidates, in separate races, personify the intensifying ideological partitioning occurring within the once strongly Democratic constituency of Latino voters, whose numbers are growing.

Should he win his race, Democrat Rudy Salas would be the first Latino elected to Congress from a district in California’s Central Valley. Rep. Mike Garcia hopes for another term representing a northern Los Angeles suburban district.

Their highly competitive races, along with a few other California congressional races, have pushed Latino voters to the front lines of the bitter fight for control of the House.

Republicans hold the House majority, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to seize control, which is possible regardless of who wins the White House.

Five California House races have been rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report, meaning they are where Democrats have the best chances of flipping seats. They include District 22, where Salas, a former state Assembly member, is challenging GOP Rep. David Valadao, and District 27, where Garcia is trying to fend off a challenge from Democrat George Whitesides, a businessman, nonprofit organization leader and former NASA chief of staff.

One of every 4 voters in California this election, more than 4.8 million, will be Latino, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The would be slightly higher than in 2020 and a 22.4% increase in voter share from 2016, the nonprofit, nonpartisan group estimated.

“This election is going to be an important indication of the Latino vote nationally, as well as here in California,” said Arturo Vargas, NALEO’s CEO.

District 22 in California’s Central Valley

In his race, Salas is reminding many Central Valley voters of his roots in farmworking — “I managed to wake up before the rooster” — as part of his father’s crew, for which he was paid by the quantity he picked or the box he packed, because he wasn’t officially on the payrolls as an underage worker.

“It comes up when I go door to door,” he said. “People say, 'you understand what we go through.'” He said many are confused, at first, that he’d be the first Latino elected, because they are under the mistaken belief that Valadao, who is of Portuguese descent, is Latino.

But then they get “super excited,” Salas said.

Salas said he reminds them that the race is about making the American Dream achievable, making home and health costs affordable, addressing immigration and boosting education. He said he also tells voters that the district is the most Latino one in the state, but that Latinos have a record of not showing up and need to change that this year.

Salas has been seen as a moderate who broke with his party over a state increase in the gas tax, costing him his committee chairmanship.

“The support is out there. It is just a matter of getting people to go out and vote,” Salas said. “I’m making every effort to go out and reach people, in Spanish or English, to get them to understand these are the stakes to control the House of Representatives.”

Valadao’s parents immigrated from the Azores; Portuguese Americans aren’t included in the federal government definition of Hispanic. Valadao’s parents went into dairy farming, and he has had leadership positions in the dairy industry; he touts his focus on water issues affecting the area.

Valadao is one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Valadao said he doesn’t support Trump’s mass deportation proposals, though he supports toughening asylum laws and border enforcement.

“I have obviously not supported [mass deportation], but that being said, is there a place where, potentially, millions of people come to this country that we don’t know anything about? We have to know who some of these people are, and the ones that are here to do us harm, we have to export them back … and that needs to be done quickly,” he said.

Valadao was first elected to Congress in 2013 but lost in 2018 when Democrats won back a large number of Republican-held seats in the state.

Valadao returned to Congress when he won the midterm race against Salas in 2022 by 51.5% to 48.5% in an election in which Latino turnout was “anemically low,” said Luis Alvarado, a California Republican strategist.

Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the district, 129,793 to 86,112 as of Sept. 6. But the district had the third-lowest turnout in the country in the 2022 midterms, according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

“That’s the worry that the Democrats have,” Alvarado said, emphasizing the importance of turnout this year.

District 27 in northern Los Angeles

In California’s District 27, Garcia, a Naval Academy graduate and former Navy fighter pilot whose mother and grandfather immigrated from Mexico, said he’s approaching Latinos like everyone else. “I don’t treat them any differently. In the end, we are all Americans. When I hear from my constituents, I hear they are proud to be Americans first.”

Garcia said he’s campaigning on controlling spending and on safety and security, including border and neighborhood security. He touted drug busts of marijuana growers, which he said were led by his office, in Black and Latino communities where, he said, cartels were setting up.

Garcia has a conservative record in Congress and is endorsed by Trump. His district supported Joe Biden in 2020, the year he won a special election and then the general election to Congress.

Whitesides, a NASA engineer and former CEO of Virgin Galactic who runs a nonprofit organization focused on modernizing wildfire response, has taken a different approach in his Latino outreach as he campaigns to unseat Garcia.

“We have centered on Latino voters in our campaign,” said Whitesides, whose wife is of Cuban and Salvadoran heritage. “We are knocking every weekend with bilingual volunteers. Our literature and our ads are all bilingual or Spanish language.”

Whitesides said the issues he focuses on are those that cross populations, such as affordable health care, safe streets, homeownership and small-business support. He criticized Garcia’s vote against the Inflation Reduction Act, which extended healthcare coverage subsidies and permitted Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.

Nationally, Democrats’ advantage among Latinos has been shrinking. Polls show Vice President Kamala Harris reignited Latinos for her party after a poor showing for Biden before he left the race. In a September NBC News poll, Harris held a 14-point advantage over Trump among Latino voters, but her 54%-40% lead was tighter than previous Democratic presidential candidates’ were.

In an Oct. 3-10 poll by the Latino Community Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropic group led by former Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro, 51% of Latino voters in District 22 said they would vote for Salas, and 21% for Valadao. Those totals included some who said they were undecided but leaning in the direction of one of the candidates. Another 28% said they were "completely undecided".

In the same poll, 52% of Latino voters in District 27 said they support Whitesides, compared to 24% for Garcia and 24% completely undecided. The poll by BSP Research, a Democratic firm, surveyed 200 voters in each district and had a margin of error for each of plus or minus 6.9%.

In the last presidential election, Latino turnout was very high, and now it “actually is approaching the turnout rate for non-Latinos,” Vargas said.

While the 2022 midterm turnout was very low in both of the California districts, the question is whether the heightened neck-and-neck race between Trump and Harris — as well as the attention on those congressional races — triggers Democrats who weren’t sure about voting or weren’t planning to turn out at all.

California allows voters to choose “no party preference” when they register, and nearly a fifth of voters in districts 22 and 27 are in that category. How they cast their ballots — and whether they vote — will be another closely watched variable in those congressional races.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com