SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
In California's Central Valley, Republican Congressman David Valadao has won six of the last seven elections. But he is in an especially tough fight this year. As Jackie Fortier with our partner KFF Health News reports, his past votes on healthcare could make him vulnerable.
JACKIE FORTIER: Ulises Hernandez sits in his wheelchair outside representative David Valadao's office in Bakersfield. He's here to protest cuts to Medicaid, which covers low-income Americans and people with disabilities like himself. He blames recent cuts to Medicaid for longer wait times.
ULISES HERNANDEZ: This could tie into hospitals closing, clinics closing.
FORTIER: Hernandez recently swallowed a dental crown during a procedure. He spent eight hours in an emergency room waiting for care.
HERNANDEZ: If this is, like, a small taste of what's to come next year, I don't want that to happen to anyone.
FORTIER: Valadao's district has the highest Medicaid enrollment of any Republican-held seat in the country. Six in 10 residents have Medicaid, and Valadao needs their votes to get reelected. But Hernandez says he's livid.
HERNANDEZ: The current congressman of California should be ashamed of himself for what he did.
FORTIER: He's talking about Valadao's vote last year for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That tax and spending law is expected to cut hundreds of billions from federal health spending. Much of those cuts will be to Medicaid. An estimated 60,000 residents of Valadao's district will lose coverage.
MIKE JOHNSON: In California's 27th district.
FORTIER: On the other side of Bakersfield from his office, Valadao was at his reelection fundraiser. It was being hosted by the Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. During their speeches, neither man mentioned Medicaid or even healthcare. Afterward, I asked Valadao about the people in his district who could lose coverage.
Is there anything that you'd like to say to them?
DAVID VALADAO: I think you are distorting the truth.
FORTIER: He didn't answer my question. Of the half a dozen people I approached at the event, none of them live in the district, so they can't vote for Valadao. But supporters like retired nurse Charlotte Brandt came anyway.
CHARLOTTE BRANDT: He's a hero for Central Valley, for water, for oil, for ag. And those are all of our livelihoods in Kern County.
FORTIER: Those local issues have carried Valadao to election victories before, says Jeffrey Cummins, a political scientist at Fresno State.
JEFFREY CUMMINS: But I think this is a throw-the-bums-out election year, in that you're going to have a rejection of incumbents.
FORTIER: This year, control of the House could come down to a single congressional district. Like some other states, California has redrawn its voter maps. Valadao's district is considered a toss-up. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have each booked more than $16 million in ad buys. Voters are awash in ads.
SESLIE MAESE: It's funny that my 7-year-old knows a lot about him.
FORTIER: Seslie Maese is a stay-at-home mom from Bakersfield. I met her in front of a library. Her 7-year-old likes to watch Lego videos on YouTube. He keeps seeing an ad pop up attacking a trip Valadao took to Italy.
MAESE: Now every time that ad comes on, he comes running up to me, David Valadao, I wonder where he's going (laughter).
FORTIER: Maese is a registered Republican but isn't sure she's even going to vote. She doesn't think much of Valadao.
MAESE: He just hasn't come through with anything he said, so I don't think anybody would be voting for him again, especially since he cut off a lot of Medicaid.
FORTIER: Here, where the land gives so much, voters will decide what they expect in return.
In Bakersfield, California, I'm Jackie Fortier.
DETROW: That story comes to us from our partner KFF Health News.
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