Incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Garcia and Democrat Christy Smith will again square off in Tuesday’s general election for Californiia’s 27th Congressional District primarily because of redistricting.
The 27th District covers largely the same geographic area as the old 25th District. The biggest effect of the redistricting was to move the Republican-heavy Simi Valley into a different district. In 2020, Garcia defeated Smith in the general election by a scant 333 votes, making it the third-closest U.S. House race that year.
In the June 7 top-two primary, Garcia received 49.6% of the vote to Smith’s 35.4%. Republican candidates won a combined 53.4% of the primary vote, while Democrats captured captured a combined 46.6%
Garcia was first elected to represent the 25th District in May 2020, when he won a special election to succeed Rep. Katie Hill (D). Garcia served in the U.S. Navy as a pilot for 20 years and worked for Raytheon after his retirement. His website lists the economy, jobs, taxes and inflation as his key campaign issues.
“With my experience, I know what needs to be done and I wouldn’t be able to look my two young boys in the face and tell them I had the opportunity to make things right but I chose not to,” Garcia said. “The sacrifices to my family and me are significant but there is nothing more important than [election] today. We need to be aggressive this time.”
Garcia cited his “proven track record” as a leader of job creation and winning new business while also advocating for and promoting minorities and women. He supports decreasing taxes (including eliminating the SALT deduction cap) and shrinking the size of the federal government. Garcia opposed the efforts to decrease police funding and to impose vaccination requirements on police officers.
Smith served in the California Assembly from 2018 to 2020. She worked as an analyst for the U.S. Department of Education and founded the Valencia Valley Technological Education Foundation. Her key campaign issues are expanding access to healthcare, improving the quality of education and codifying Roe v. Wade.
“If we’re going to leave future generations the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then we have to fight harder than ever before,” Smith said. “We must fight harder with our words, and against the Washington corruption that holds us back.”
Smith has said that healthcare was a “human right” and that the Affordable Care Act needs to be expanded, adding that the healthcare system should have the “same consumer protections” as other markets.
Both Garcia and Smith are campaigning for issues not terribly dissimilar to those facing the rest of the country. Voters have been steadily honing in on issues that may decide the fate of Congress and several state governments.
