While seriously contemplating a rematch with his successor, Former Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) filed a statement of candidacy for his former seat in Congress on Tuesday, Federal Elections Commission filings show.
Valadao, who lost to Fresno Democrat TJ Cox by 862 votes in 2018, subtly began dropping hints he may take another run for Congress last week when Vice President Mike Pence visited Lemoore for an event on the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement.
“We’re putting a lot of thought into it,” Valadao told GVWire last Wednesday during the Vice President’s visit.
In stories published after his candidacy statement was filed with the FEC, Valadao told The Bakersfield Californian that he was still assessing a potential candidacy.
“We’re not making any announcements yet,” Valadao told The Californian’s Robert Price late Tuesday. “We’re looking at it but we’re not ready. We have been making calls, talking to people.”
Price at The Californian said he expected to hear of a formal announcement sometime in early August.
The Sun could not reach Valadao for comment.
The National Republican Campaign Committee recently released internal polling from late June which showed that Cox was trailing a so-called “potential Republican challenger” by 16 points, a 52 percent to 36 percent.
A Republican source told McClatchyDC that the potential challenger was Valadao. [mnky_ads id=”8872″]
Disclosure: I previously worked for Valadao during his prior tenure in the House.
