| A new CNN report details the mounting political backlash facing David Valadao after his deciding vote to rip health care from tens of thousands of Central Valley families.
CNN notes this isn’t the first time Valadao’s health care vote has put his seat in danger. Voters kicked Valadao out of office in 2018 after he voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, voters in the Central Valley — home to the highest concentration of Medicaid enrollees in the country — are once again revolting against his decision to side with Washington Republicans over the communities he represents.
The report highlights growing alarm from health care workers and local leaders already seeing the consequences of Valadao’s vote in the Valley: cuts to services, fewer resources for clinics and hospitals, and uncertainty for families who rely on care to survive.
At the center of the contrast is Valadao’s challenger, Dr. Jasmeet Bains: a practicing family physician who still treats Medicaid patients every weekend in her Delano clinic, and has built her career fighting for the Valley communities Valadao sold out.
DCCC Spokesperson Anna Elsasser:
“David Valadao cast the deciding vote to gut health care for the very families he promised to protect, and Central Valley voters are not going to forget it. Dr. Jasmeet Bains understands what’s at stake because she lives it every day as a physician serving Valley patients. While Valadao chose his party in Washington, Dr. Bains will always fight to protect health care for the Central Valley.”
 CNN: How a vote for Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ put Republican David Valadao in danger of losing his seat
- Since Valadao was first elected in 2012, Democrats have…been able to beat him once: in 2018, after he voted for his party’s failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
- This year, Democrats are betting voters in the district… will be equally frustrated with his vote in 2025 for President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts legislation, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
- Those changes will impact California’s 22nd District, which has one of the highest concentrations of Medicaid enrollees in the country.
- Fifty-nine percent of residents in the district are insured by the program…Nearly 57,000 people in the district could lose their Medicaid coverage…
- …Healthcare providers who work in the district warn that they’re already feeling the impact of Trump’s agenda bill, as hospitals and healthcare centers begin making changes to their budgets.
- “What’s happening now is that they’re facing reductions in resources, reductions in options in medications, reductions in options in physicians and programs,” said Tina Croxton, a behavioral health nurse and member of the Service Employees International Union California, which has backed Bains.
- Bains, a medical doctor who still works at a clinic in her hometown of Delano treating Medicaid patients, has pointed to her years of experience as a doctor, a health policy expert and lawmaker as evidence she’s the most qualified to enact real change.
- “She knows what the patients need here, and the needs are great,” Croxton said.
- For some in the district…efforts to limit the impact of the Trump agenda bill fall short. Nataly Santamaria, a community leader… in the district who helps people access health care said Valadao hadn’t done enough to explain what the path forward looks like.
- “As a constituent, because I am his constituent, I feel he betrayed us,” she said.
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