Audrey Denney is trying to win a House seat twice – first in a special election, and then again after the district is redrawn.
Districts 1 and 2 were re-aligned so now Chico is in District 1. Audrey Denny is running in District 1. https://audreyforcongress.com/
Inside an old Craftsman on the northern end of California’s Sacramento valley, Audrey Denney is spending the day on the phone – calling constituent after constituent to discuss rising healthcare costs, wildfire insurance premiums and cuts to benefits – and to solicit donations.
It’s the mundane way in which an epic, and uphill, battle for control of the US Congress is being fought.
Denney, a 41-year-old Democrat who has pledged not to take any money from corporate Pacs, is trying to win a region comfortably held by Republicans for nearly half a century. She’s trying to win it not just once, but twice, in what can rightly be described as one of the most chaotic and confusing election years in this rural corner of the state.
Last year, California’s first congressional district, which extends from the almond orchards and rice fields of the Sacramento valley to the forested and fire-prone foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, was thrust at the center of a political firestorm.
The district was one of several remade under a bold redistricting proposal that redrew the state’s voting map to favor Democrats. Its new boundaries include counties to the west and south, making it competitive for Democrats for the first time in years. Doug LaMalfa, the Republican who had long held the district’s seat, was readying for a long-shot bid for re-election. Denney saw her opening.
Then, on 6 January, LaMalfa suddenly died…(more) scroll down the page for the link to the article
RELATED:
In his radically redrawn new district, a Marin congressman gets thrown to the wolves.
By Joe Garofali : sfchronicle – excerpt
ALTURAS (Modoc County) — The Supreme Court has not yet signed off on California’s Proposition 50, which redrew the state’s congressional boundaries in order to boost the number of Democrats in Congress. But is not waiting. He’s already started visiting the most remote parts of his radically redrawn district, which is now set to include one of the most conservative corners of the state.
At times, it felt like a scene from a sitcom: A progressive congressman from Marin County trying to woo Trump-loving locals in California’s MAGA-iest corner. A place so right-leaning that the Democratic Party doesn’t even have a local chapter…
During a two-day barnstorm of the region that included stops to meet with a local Indivisible chapter, a native tribe and at a biofuel mini power plant.
Huffman, clad in a fleece U.S. Congress vest, assured Indivisible club members that he understands them…
Huffman spent the tour emphasizing that he’s fished on rivers here for years and that he’s not going to be pushing culture war issues. That may be more of a challenge in the future… (more)
Shasta County, for example, is home to the 11,000-member evangelical Bethel Church that supports anti-LGBTQ policies and has thrown its weight behind local political office-holders, magnifying its conservative influence in the region. Huffman, meanwhile, is co-chair of the Congressional Free Thought Caucus, which advocates for church-state separation and calls out Christian nationalism in government. He describes himself as a humanist who doesn’t believe in God.
He didn’t spend a lot of his trip Trump-bashing but told the Indivisible group that “I am absolutely horrified at the threat to our democracy, to our fundamental values. It only seems to get worse with these scenes from Minnesota that they’re so horrifying to all of us.”
Huffman’s old district was 53% Democratic, 19% Republican and the no party preference voters leaned heavily left. The newly drawn district is 45% Democratic, 28%
I joined Huffman and his wife, Susan, on their second trip to the far northeast corner of California in recent weeks, a 5 ½-hour drive in their electric Hyundai from their San Rafael home. They were accompanied by a private security guard Huffman hired — something he does for public events in all parts of the state. The Capitol Police investigated 14,938 threats to members of Congress last year, the third straight year threats have increased.
Huffman didn’t encounter any security issues on the trip, but certainly faced some reminders that he wasn’t in Marin anymore.
“I think I now have a more real sense for this place. It’s huge,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to make the mistake of trying to cover it in an electric vehicle.”
Not only were the Huffmans challenged trying to find working charging stations for their electric Hyundai during their travels, he said he might make the next trip in an all-wheel-drive vehicle after we got caught in a flash snowstorm that cut visibility to zero.
If he wins reelection in the newly drawn district, Huffman — the top Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources and a defender of the Endangered Special Act going back to his previous job as a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund — would represent a region where ranchers have campaigned for the gray wolf to be removed from the endangered list so they can more freely hunt them before they slaughter more of their cattle. State and federal laws prohibit people from shooting wolves, even when they eat livestock…
“I probably shouldn’t say the W-word,” Bradley Kresge, general manager of the Surprise Valley Electrification Corp, warned Huffman during an informal chat in Alturas about electricity rates in the region and other issues.
Kresge said that when he grew up in the Modoc County town of Adin, when “deer were everywhere.” Now, he said, they’ve migrated from forested areas into local neighborhoods.
“You’re turning into Marin County,” Huffman said, seizing on a point of cross-regional connection. “I have deer that I have to shoo out of my yard.”
After a few minutes of talking about wolves and livestock, Huffman said, “Well, I’m gonna have to get a little smarter on this issue.” He has spent time recently with UC Berkeley researchers doing data collection on the wolf packs to learn more about the issue but he hasn’t visited yet with any ranchers from his new region.
“I need to get out and kick some dirt on some of these ranches,” Huffman conceded. “That, in my experience, goes a long way toward breaking down some of the caricatures and stereotypes and just starting a conversation. I hope some ranchers will talk to me. I know that the politics are tricky here.”
“I appreciate your openness just to sit down and talk,” Kresge said. “You’ll do OK here.”… (more)