In a race that tested the appeal of MAGA politics in the Bay Area, District 10 Democratic incumbent Rep. Mark DeSaulnier defeated Republican challenger Katherine Piccinini on Tuesday night.
While DeSaulnier prioritized Democratic issues such as women’s reproductive rights, environmental protection and gun control, Piccinini hoped to antagonize him with a MAGA-aligned agenda focused on controversial cultural issues such such as transgender athlete participation in women’s sports, COVID vaccine skepticism, and border closures. .
“MAGA politics is not working very well (in District 10),” DeSaulnier told the Bay Area News Group. “I want to continue the work we have been successful at, especially in transportation.”
DeSaulnier has won resounding victories in each of his congressional races since 2014, but Piccinini hoped to flip the district to the Republicans with an explicitly MAGA agenda. Republicans haven’t won in District 10 since 2016, and polling aggregator website Five ThirtyEigth identified District 10 as a “race to watch.”
DeSaulnier has been a public servant for most of his life, starting in 1991 as a Concord city councilman. He was first elected to the U.S. Congress in 2014 and joined the committees on Ethics, Transportation, Health, and Education, and is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“Ethics and honesty on both sides are important,” DeSaulnier said. “We need to restore that after this election…because of Mr. Trump, in particular, people are dissociated from the idea of trusting the government.” »
Piccinini made children and family the central tenet of his campaign. Oakley’s grandmother is the current president of the Eastern Contra Costa Republican Women’s Federation and a member of the Contra Costa Republican Central Committee.
She said she “fears losing America” and promised to restore the values of “God, family, life and country” to District 10 if elected. His campaign highlighted the school system as a source of “indoctrination, not education,” while criticizing transgender students’ participation in sports.
“I will vote for laws that protect our children from groomers, predators and biological males in women’s sports,” Piccinini said on his campaign website.
DeSaulnier’s agenda focused on less partisan issues among Democrats that reflect voters’ most important concerns in Gallup polls. The congressman prioritizes the economy, women’s reproductive rights and “fighting the reckless Republican agenda” that Democratic leaders have called a threat to democracy.
Over the past year, DeSaulnier has focused on gun control and mental health; subjects on which he made speeches in the House. He described his personal experience with gun violence earlier this year, while seeking to persuade Congress to pass gun reform legislation.
“(Thirty-five) years ago, on April 20, I lost my own father to suicide by gun,” DeSaulnier said in an April 11 speech. “35 years later, we have not done enough to combat this suicide epidemic. For far too many people, they continue to lose loved ones the same way I did.
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