The ferocious battle in California’s heartland laying bare Democrats’ struggles

Democrats are determined to flip the 22nd district blue. But which vision for the future will prevail?

When Jasmeet Bains first announced she was running for Congress, some Democratic powerbrokers saw her candidacy as downright providential in their quest to flip a crucial House seat that had been in Republican hands for years.

As a doctor in California's agriculture-heavy Central valley, living and working in one of the poorest districts in the US, Bains could speak with singular authority about the devastating impact of cuts to healthcare enacted in Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.