In its first ad of the general election season, the campaign of Rep. Mike Garcia, a politically vulnerable Republican from Santa Clarita, offers a misleading description of the congressman’s role in passing the Violence Against Women Act, which provides relief to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
The 30-second ad, titled “Voices,” was released Tuesday. It features an anonymous voter who says, “Mike cosponsored the Violence Against Women Act to protect us from domestic violence. That’s why we need Mike Garcia in Congress.”
Garcia made the same co-sponsorship claim at a Santa Clarita City Hall event last month, calling his support “highly important” because “not many Republicans” had sponsored reauthorization of the landmark 1994 law.
But in 2021, Garcia voted against a version of the reauthorization measure that was approved by the House Democratic majority, joining conservatives who protested provisions that expanded protections for LGBTQ+ people and restricted gun access for people convicted of partner abuse or harassment. Instead, Garcia co-sponsored a Republican-led stopgap measure to renew the law for one year, without the new provisions, which failed.
He was not a sponsor of the amended reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act that Democratic President Biden eventually signed into law the following year as part of a sweeping federal spending measure. It is that version of the law that remains in effect today.
Garcia's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Garcia’s Democratic opponent, George Whitesides, also released his first ad Tuesday. The 30-second TV spot, titled “Experience,” highlights Whitesides’ experience as NASA chief of staff and CEO of Mojave-based Virgin Galactic.
“I will use my business experience to solve problems rather than play politics,” Whitesides says in the announcement.
The race between Garcia and Whitesides to represent the 27th Congressional District in northern Los Angeles County, including the Antelope Valley, is one of the most competitive — and consequential — in the country.
Erin Covey, an analyst with the Cook Political Report, an independent election forecaster, said the race will be crucial in determining whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Garcia has been elected three times, he represents a district where Democrats hold a significant advantage in voter registration, and which President Biden won by double digits in 2020.
“I think this is going to be a race to watch closely,” Covey said during a panel discussion at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month. “It’s suburban. It’s diverse. It’s a race where [Vice President Kamala] “Harris should really be a boost.”
George Whitesides, a Democrat seeking to unseat Garcia, is touting his past as NASA chief of staff and chief executive of Virgin Galactic, saying he created hundreds of local jobs.
(Zoe Cranfill/Los Angeles Times)
The new ads from Garcia and Whitesides mark the start of a massive advertising campaign that will flood Southern California airwaves leading up to Election Day.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that supports Republicans running for House of Representatives, has set aside $18.2 million for advertising in the Los Angeles area this fall, with a focus on District 27.
The House Majority PAC, which backs Democrats, has booked more than $22.4 million in television and digital ads, in both English and Spanish, in the Los Angeles media market, one of the most expensive in the country.
The House Majority PAC said last year it would spend $35 million in California, roughly triple what it spent on the 2022 midterm campaigns in the Golden State, when Democrats underperformed in some districts that were expected to be strongholds.
Garcia's new campaign ad leans on his military credentials. The congressman, a former Navy fighter pilot, flew more than 30 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom before spending 11 years as an executive at defense contractor Raytheon.
“Even though I’m no longer in the cockpit, my fight for you and for the country never stops,” he says in the ad, wearing a brown leather flight jacket.
Voters rally behind the proposal, saying their “new mission” includes lowering prescription drug costs and “fighting career politicians” to lower costs for families. The announcement does not specify what those costs are.
Whitesides' new announcement says he created more than 700 jobs in the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita while running Virgin Galactic.
Those jobs included positions for engineers, technicians, accountants, human relations professionals and others, with a focus on early career development for recent high school and community college graduates, Whitesides said in an interview this week.
Whitesides, a first-time candidate, said his first announcement is focused on job creation because many of the district's residents endure long commutes to work in Los Angeles while living in the Antelope Valley, where housing is more affordable.
“People are hungry for local job opportunities so they don’t have to spend four hours on the road,” Whitesides said.
In the ad, Whitesides also says that people are fighting crime and that he will “get more funding for the police.”
Whitesides has spoken out in favor of Proposition 36, a state ballot measure that calls for tougher penalties for some drug-related crimes and theft.
The measure, called the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, asks voters to partially undo Proposition 47, a controversial ballot initiative passed in 2014 that reclassified some nonviolent felonies as misdemeanors.
Proposition 36 has been endorsed by the California Republican Party.
Democrats are divided over the measure. It has been supported by some big-city mayors, including San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. But Gov. Gavin Newsom and some top Democratic leaders in the state legislature have come out against it, arguing it would return California to a tough-on-crime era that swelled the state’s prison population to unconstitutional levels.
Whitesides said he is “one of the few Democrats who have come out in support of the reform measure” because residents want to control theft and are “rightly concerned about public safety.”
At his town hall meeting last month, Garcia said he, too, supported increased funding for law enforcement. He said Proposition 47 should be rejected and that state Democrats had been pushing too many “pro-criminal” policies.
Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report.
