California at Forefront as Democrats Tap Doctors for High-Stakes House Races

[This column was reported for Political Breakdown, a bi-monthly newsletter offering analysis and context on Bay Area and California political news. Click here to subscribe.]

As Democrats look to make health care a defining issue in next year’s midterms, the party and allied groups are recruiting doctors to run against Republicans in some of the nation’s most competitive House districts.

Two California doctors — Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains and Rep. Ami Bera — are running in GOP-held seats seen as key to Democrats’ chances of flipping the House. Their early campaign ads and logos, filled with lab coats, stethoscopes and heart-rate lines, underscore Democrats’ bets that health care will be friendly terrain for the party and that doctors remain trusted voices for most voters.

That strategy builds on how Democratic leaders in Congress have fought the Trump administration on health care this year — from opposing Medicaid cuts in the GOP budget bill to grilling Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policies to shutting the government down in an attempt to force an extension of Obamacare subsidies.

“I think health care is going to be one of the number one issues next year,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action, a group that works to elect scientists and physicians to public office.

Naughton founded 314 Action nearly a decade ago with the goal of electing more scientists. This year, the group launched an initiative, Guardians of Public Health, aiming to raise $25 million by 2030 to elect 100 health care professionals to state and federal offices.

“This year it became very clear that we needed to have a very strong message directly to physicians that are concerned about what is going on in our country,” Naughton said.

Across the country, Democrats with medical backgrounds in battleground districts include Amish Shah in Arizona’s 1st District, Tina Shah in New Jersey’s 7th District and Ada Cuellar in Texas’ 15th District.

Democrats are buoyed by polling that shows widespread public dissatisfaction with much of the Trump administration’s health care agenda.

A recent survey by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, found 63% of adults held an unfavorable view of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which paired an extension of tax cuts with historic reductions to Medicaid, the nation’s health care safety net.

Meanwhile, 78% of adults want Congress to extend enhanced tax credits for people who buy insurance through the Obamacare marketplace. Democrats failed to win an extension during the shutdown fight, but Republicans are now facing political heat as they near an end-of-year deadline to avert dramatic premium increases.

Even in the debate over childhood vaccinations, KFF found that a majority of parents value childhood vaccination for measles and polio — and distrust vaccine information from Kennedy.

The findings reinforce a longstanding Democratic advantage on health care, Ashley Kirzinger, KFF’s director of survey methodology, told me. Crucially, independents share Democrats’ dissatisfaction with the Trump administration’s health care moves.

And doctors running for office could be well-positioned to drive home the case.

“We know that doctors and health care providers are the most trusted sources of information,” Kirzinger said.

In California, that trust will be put to the test in the gauntlet of a midterm campaign.

After California voters approved Proposition 50 to redraw congressional district lines, Bera opted to run in the new 3rd District, currently held by Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley.

Kiley is deciding whether to run in his current seat against Bera or in the neighboring 6th District, where another Democratic doctor, former state Sen. Richard Pan, is running.

Bains launched her campaign for the 22nd District in July after incumbent Rep. David Valadao voted for the budget bill, which stands to hit the Bakersfield district particularly hard: Roughly two-thirds of residents rely on Medicaid, the most of any seat in California.

“Nowhere else has this much to lose,” Bains said in a campaign video, dressed in a lab coat.

Bains’ spot in the general election is not assured, as she faces strong competition from Visalia school board member Randy Villegas. Likewise, Pan faces a growing field of Democratic challengers in the Sacramento-based 6th District.

Both candidates will also have to contend with attacks from Republicans, including arguments that their most relevant jobs aren’t doctor but state legislator.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Christian Martinez previewed a potential GOP line of attack: targeting votes by Bains and Pan to extend health coverage to undocumented immigrants through Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.

“They all have records of voting for extreme, radical policies — for defending and voting for illegal immigrants over the Californians that they’re supposed to represent,” he said.

But Democrats remain confident that as long as they’re talking about health care, they’re winning. An October survey by the Pew Research Center found the largest advantage for Democrats on any issue was health care by a 42%-29% margin.