California chaos: Vince Fong’s fight to replace Kevin McCarthy reflects GOP infighting

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) nearly capped a tumultuous final year in office with another loss.

When the prolific fundraiser announced he was leaving Congress after 17 years in the Capitol, a battle royale to replace him broke out in California‘s deep-red 20th Congressional District. McCarthy’s pending departure set off a fierce intraparty fight in the district, spanning the eastern Central Valley from the Bakersfield to Fresno areas. It’s a spat within the GOP family that recalled the end of McCarthy’s nine-month speakership, done in by a band of House conservatives with whom he’d long feuded in the most personal terms.

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Ultimately, a Superior Court judge in Sacramento County, taking in the state Capitol, had to help adjudicate the ballot dispute in the otherwise sleepy week between Christmas and New Year’s. It was a fight that would determine which Republican is likely to win the House district, the reddest in California, where in 2020 former President Donald Trump would have crushed President Joe Biden 61.3% to 36.4% — while statewide the Democratic White House ticket won by a nearly 2-1 margin.

A natural candidate for the seat was always Republican Assemblyman Vince Fong. He started his political career working for the same House member who was once McCarthy’s political patron, former California Republican Rep. Bill Thomas, an at times irascible lawmaker who capped his 28-year congressional career with six years as chairman of the influential, tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. After McCarthy succeeded Thomas, his old boss, in the 2006 elections, Fong became the new congressman’s district director for nearly a decade. That experience and relationship with one of the top Republicans in the country meant Fong was tapped as the next man up when McCarthy announced he would rather go home than spend another year in Washington.

But a chaotic end to 2023 on top of California’s jungle primary system has left the landscape muddled. Instead of instantly stepping into the breach left by McCarthy, Fong opted to run for reelection in the state Assembly. That seemingly helped clear the path for state Sen. Shannon Grove, who gained prominence in September with a rare Republican win in the Democratic-dominated legislature when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed into law her bill to steepen penalties for human trafficking of minors in California.

A day after McCarthy published an op-ed explaining his decision to leave Congress, Fong posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “now is not my time.” But Grove surprised much of the California political world five days later when she declined to run for McCarthy’s seat, giving Fong a second bite at the congressional apple. As fast as he told voters it wasn’t time for him to aim for Washington, Fong changed course, picking up McCarthy’s mantle and public endorsement in the process.

“There is no one that I trust more to continue the fight for commonsense and conservative values in Washington, D.C.,” McCarthy said at the time. “I am proud to endorse my friend Vince Fong for Congress.”

Fong was in. McCarthy was behind him. But California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, wasn’t on board with the change. Fong, according to Weber, wasn’t eligible to appear on the ballot for McCarthy’s old seat because he was already slated to appear as a candidate for the state Assembly — and a century-old statute barred candidates from appearing on one ballot “for more than one office at the same election.”

A back-and-forth legal fight is still playing out. Fong won an initial challenge to Weber’s determination that he was ineligible. She promised to appeal the judge’s ruling, but the fight could be illustrative of a larger problem for California Republicans, who are entering a period where their most powerful figure in Washington, D.C., is fading into the background.

“I don’t know that it has much of an impact on the overall California Republican Party,” California public affairs strategist Tal Eslick told the Washington Examiner. “The Republican Party out there had their sort of structural challenges over the last few years in California, long before this particular instance.”

Eslick said the confusion about whether Fong or Grove was the clear front-runner to replace McCarthy wasn’t so much about how much control the California GOP has over candidates as it is about the “chaotic nature of politics.”

Such chaos defined most of 2023 in the House — centering almost exclusively on problems related to McCarthy and his ability, or lack thereof, to unite his razor-thin caucus. It’s filtered down to states and House districts, which could spell trouble for Republicans who, due to several resignations (McCarthy’s included), have a tenuous hold on their majority in the House — at least in the short term until special elections are held to pick replacements.

It’s unlikely a Democrat has a chance to flip the 20th District, which loops around from north of Fresno through the Sequoia National Forest south into Bakersfield. Eslick described the district as a seat that “you can’t be too conservative in.” And that could force a protracted war between candidates vying for the seat.

A pair of Republicans may square off in November, having prevailed in California’s March 5 “top-two primary” system which, in one-sided districts like the 20th, often means members of the same party oppose each other in the general election. Fong would appear to have an inside track to the front of the field, given his name ID as a state assemblyman and former McCarthy lieutenant. And his former boss’s endorsement could help clear out the crowded field as some of the team players bow out due to party loyalty.

Still, Democrats Andy Morales, whose campaign bio hasn’t been changed to remove a call to “take down Kevin McCarthy,” and Marisa Wood, an English teacher, aren’t likely to be deterred. And David Giglio, a former high school history teacher and small-business owner, is running a fiery MAGA campaign, aiming at Democrats and Republicans alike in his criticism of “the DC uniparty, led by Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Kevin McCarthy.”

Giglio has gone on offense against the California GOP “breaking election law” to support “McCarthy’s hand-picked candidate.”

Eslick pointed out that, in the past, when the state party has tried to “put their thumb on the scale in a primary, it goes poorly,” and that there doesn’t appear to be any intervention by party leaders in this contest.

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A noninterventionist strategy might be “good for democracy,” as Eslick said, but it also has a chance to sow more confusion in the race if Fong doesn’t get the bounce he’s expecting from McCarthy’s support.

With 11 declared candidates vying for the seat, a race to “out conservative” each other, and a simmering disdain for the man who held it most recently, the confusing fight over ballot access may be only the opening salvo in a politically bloody intra-Republican fight, culminating with the November election.