California’s 22nd Congressional District is a sprawling inland section of central California that starts in Bakersfield and fans out west to touch Monterey and near San Luis Obispo wine country. The nearly 800,000-person patch of California desert is a Republican outpost that has been under siege by Democrats trying to finish squeezing out the remnants of a once-powerful GOP presence in the state.

Two years ago, when Republicans stumbled their way over the finish line to seize House control from Democrats, Valadao had to fight long and hard to retain his position. The race was one of the last to be called in the state that is infamous for its glacial pace at announcing winners and losers. The extreme left tilt of the Golden State doesn’t matter so much for the presidential contest as there’s no doubt Vice President Kamala Harris will sail to victory in her backyard over Trump, the Republican nominee.

But the contest for the House is as tight as the one for the White House. And control of the lower chamber could run right through Valadao and his ability to hold off former Democratic state Assemblyman Rudy Salas again.

During that 2022 “red wave” year that turned into a red tide event, Valadao held out to beat Salas by 2 percentage points. Two years later, with Trump at the top of the ticket and a California native as the top Democrat, Democrats are confident they can run a similar playbook and get a different result.

Salas has a clear edge with registered voters. Roughly 42% of the district’s voters are registered Democrats, according to state data compiled in February. And while 26.61% of voters are registered Republicans, a full 22% say they have no political preference, meaning last-minute decisions on the way to the polls aren’t out of the question.

Democratic dominance didn’t help put Salas over the edge in 2022, even after President Joe Biden would have won the district by 13 points had it been configured the same way in 2020. Voters in this swath of the Central Valley have regularly split their tickets. They’ve been supporting House Republicans since parts of the district were once political home to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was first elected to the House in 2006.

And Harris is not performing as well in her home state as Biden did four years ago. Though the vice president is running a comfortable 22 points ahead of Trump in California, she’s only sneaking past him by 1 point in the Central Valley, according to an Oct. 10 Berkeley IGS Poll. Biden beat Trump by 29 points statewide in 2020.

And then there is the problem of how Harris is polling among Hispanic voters, who make up 74% of the 22nd District and 40% of the state as a whole. According to the same poll, Harris is only leading by 19 points, compared to Biden’s 54-point romp with the bloc four years ago.

Of course, those are Harris’s polling figures, not Salas’s. The “D” attached to their names doesn’t make them mirror images of each other, though it doesn’t bode well for a challenger running down the ballot from a middling presidential candidate.

Where most Democrats could lean into attacking Republicans for their implied or explicit support for Trump, Salas doesn’t have a card to play there.

Valadao has held steady in his opposition to Trump, weathering the storm of voting to impeach him in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and refusing to hint at how he will vote in November.

“I have to focus on winning my race, and that’s my top priority,” Valadao said at a recent debate with Salas when asked about whether he was supporting his party’s nominee. “And I’ve purposely gone out of my way to make sure I’m not getting involved in anything presidential.”

Salas and Valadao won’t find much separating them on one of the most important topics for voters in November either. Valadao is an immigration dove, having co-sponsored the Dream Act of 2017, which would have created a pathway to citizenship for children who were brought into the country illegally by their parents.

If Valadao is trying to keep Trump at arm’s length, he is also prepared to hug him tight if he thinks the correlation will benefit him.

“Securing the border is a big priority for the Republican side, but even in all the really strong talking points coming from the Republican side, even President Trump himself is talking about having a pathway for people who want to come here legally,” Valadao said at that same debate. “And that’s something I think Republicans should spend more time on.”

One area Democrats have turned the screws on Valadao is his approach to healthcare. He didn’t break ranks with his party to vote down the Inflation Reduction Act and the expansion of the Affordable Care Act, and Democrats are trying to warn his constituents that they are going to feel that vote in their wallets.

“David Valadao has not only failed to lower health care costs for Californians but threatens to raise costs even further,” Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee spokesman Dan Gottlieb said in a statement earlier this month. “Voters can see that Valadao and House Republicans refuse to lift a finger to help them on pocketbook issues, and know they can never be trusted to deliver much-needed relief for Californians.”

During their debate, Salas hammered Valadao for the vote as well, saying the congressman voted against capping insulin at $15.

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Valadao’s campaign shrugged off the attacks and expressed confidence that voters would look back on his record and continue to support him.

“Central Valley voters know Rep. Valadao is a hardworking member who stays above the political fray in Washington to deliver real results for the Central Valley,” spokeswoman Faith Mabry told the Washington Examiner. “The race for the 22nd District is a clear choice between someone who consistently shows up for the Valley and a career politician in Rudy Salas who can’t be bothered to show up for work. We are confident voters will see through Rudy’s lies and send David back to Congress.”