Central Valley, meet JD Vance

Jul 18, 2024

By Tyler Katzenberger, Camille von Kaenel and Catherine Allen

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance arrives to speak during the third night of the Republican National Convention.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance arrives to speak during the third night of the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17, 2024. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

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VANCE IN THE VALLEY: Newly minted Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance is headed to California at the end of this month for a fundraiser hosted by a Golden State agribusiness giant.

The event, slated for July 31 in Coalinga, California, will be Vance’s big introduction to the heart of Republican politics (and wallets) in the Central Valley. Tickets start at $3,300 per person and go for as much as $25,000 per person for those who want a roundtable and photo opportunity, according to an invite obtained by POLITICO.

Powerful Central Valley beef producer John Harris is slated to host the event alongside a host committee of Karen and Richard Spencer and William Bourdeau, vice president at Harris Farms and a board director at Westlands Water District.

A conservative who has also supported Democrats like the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein and current Rep. Jim Costa when they align with him on water issues, Harris called Vance a “rising star” who “represents overall American values.”

Vance’s politics are likely to resonate with agribusiness and oil giants in Fresno and Kern counties, who for years have been valuable GOP donors. The vice presidential nominee, like former President Donald Trump, is a staunch trade protectionist and a skeptic of man-made climate change. And while his voting record on agricultural issues is limited, the Ohio Farm Bureau named Vance a “Friend of Farm Bureau” in 2022 for having “philosophical views” aligned with the state’s farmers.

Republicans are also hoping Vance’s background as a working-class kid from rural Ohio will play well with voters in agriculture-heavy House districts. GOP Reps. John Duarte and David Valadao are both defending toss-up seats in the Central Valley, and face well-funded Democratic challengers. Their districts could be key to Republicans’ hopes for keeping the House.

“JD’s story fits right in with Duarte’s and Valadao’s,” said GOP state Sen. Shannon Grove, who attended Vance’s speech to Republican National Convention delegates in Milwaukee yesterday. “He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He worked his way up.”

Vance will find himself wading into water politics when he visits, a perennial issue for California growers who have grumbled about having to leave their fields fallow when supply is short. Agribusiness giants have long clashed with Democratic leaders in Sacramento over what they see as the excessive regulation of the state's finite water supply.

Harris told Playbook he wants Vance to “help us get our fair allocation” from the Interior Department, which manages most water deliveries to Central Valley farmers.

He’ll likely be in good hands: Trump has already vowed to send more water to the Central Valley on day one of his administration were he to be elected again, and in 2019, he elevated a Central Valley lobbyist, David Bernhardt, to Interior Secretary to rewrite the rules governing the water deliveries to send more south.

But the Central Valley is less familiar territory for Vance, whose 2022 Senate run in Ohio was financed heavily by wealthy tech donors; Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, was his biggest supporter.

San Francisco, where Vance once lived for a short time in the 2010s while working in venture capital, was his top donor city in California, supported by tech firm CEOs, entrepreneurs and the like, an analysis of contributions to Vance’s Senate campaign between 2021 and March of 2024 shows.

Vance received nearly $1 million in individual contributions from California, the most of any state after Ohio and Florida. Among his top PAC funders from the state were biopharmaceutical company Amgen Inc.’s PAC, California Dairies Inc. and the Chevron Employees PAC, as well as political committees for Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Yelp.

— With help from Dustin Gardiner

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

FED UP: The California Labor Federation on Wednesday held off on endorsing legislators who helped kill a bill to provide unemployment insurance to striking workers over their objections to pro-Palestinian campus strikes. At least for now.

Six of the lawmakers, four of whom are Jewish Caucus members, won the formidable labor group’s backing in their primaries. But last month, they declined to vote for the UI legislation, one of the Labor Fed’s top priorities. In an emotional hearing, lawmakers questioned the Labor Fed’s decision to sanction a Gaza protest strike at the University of California, noting reports of antisemitism at the campus demonstrations.

The United Auto Workers 4811 said the walkout was a denouncement of the university’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but the strike was widely seen as a broader protest of Israel and its ground incursion into Gaza.

Now, for a chance to win the Labor Fed endorsement, Democrats Marc Berman, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Josh Lowenthal, David Alvarez, and Cottie Petrie-Norris as well as Republican Phillip Chen will need to make their case directly to its top leadership.

“Our executive council unanimously decided that they wanted to speak with the previously endorsed Democratic and Republican members who worked together to kill the UI bill,” Labor Fed leader Lorena Gonzalez told Playbook in a text. “Our 700 delegates unanimously agreed and left it up to the executive council on determining final endorsement after that meeting.”

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has offered to host the meeting in August, and the Labor Fed’s executive council will issue final endorsements by Sept. 1, Gonzalez said.

The union coalition did back Jewish Democrats across the rotunda who laid off voting for the bill, including state Sens. Josh Newman, Josh Becker and Henry Stern. That’s because those members were expressing personal opinions but did not appear to make a “concerted effort” to kill the bill, said Gonzalez. The legislation cleared the Senate with a vote to spare. — Blake Jones

IN OTHER NEWS

MIC CHECK: The UC will restrict what faculty say on university websites after academic departments criticized Israel online.

The new policy, approved today, will ban departments from issuing opinion statements on their landing pages, with some exceptions. Opinions related to a department’s day-to-day operations would be excluded.

And faculty could still make political and other opinion statements on their social media accounts and on university websites — so long as those UC sites are not department or campus homepages and they include a disclaimer that they don't represent the views of the 10-campus system.

A committee of the university’s board approved the policy on Wednesday after months of debate, clearing the way for today’s final action. — Blake Jones

POLITICO's Jonathan Martin speaks with Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita on stage at the CNN-POLITICO Grill.

POLITICO's Jonathan Martin (left) speaks Thursday with Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita at the CNN-POLITICO Grill during the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. | Rod Lamkey Jr. for POLITICO

‘KINDA WEAK’: Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin today at the RNC that Newsom was “kinda weak” as a presidential contender.

“I mean if you love California, and if you love everything he’s done for California, then you‘ll love what he’ll want to do to America,” LaCivita said.

His dim assessment of Newsom’s general election viability — delivered at the CNN-POLITICO Grill in tandem with a requisite bashing of California — follows an initial burst of interest in the governor as a possible stand-in for Biden after the June debate debacle.

Newsom is widely seen as a 2028 hopeful but has remained fully behind Biden in recent weeks despite calls from other prominent Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff, for the president to step aside.

WHAT WE'RE READING TODAY

— Maxine Waters is working to halt a $2 billion elevated train project — seen as a key piece of infrastructure for the 2028 Olympic Games — calling the federally funded project “ridiculous.” (Los Angeles Times)

— JD Vance left his Venmo public, revealing ties to some of the elites he rails against. (WIRED)

AROUND THE STATE

— San Francisco will launch “a very aggressive” sweep of homeless encampments in August that may include criminal penalties, Mayor London Breed said at an election debate today. (San Francisco Chronicle)

— Apple announced it’s helping to launch an affordable housing development in Santa Cruz that should break ground later this year. A spokesperson for the city said that’s “news to us.” (Lookout Santa Cruz)

— How the founders of Fresno’s Bitwise Industries went from tech heroes to federal felons. (Fresno Bee)

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