With all of California’s precincts partially reporting, incumbent Democrat Congressman Jimmy Panetta seems poised to hold onto his position, having garnered 67.3% of the vote over his Republican opponent Jeff Gorman.
With such a lead unlikely to change appreciably before the votes are certified next month, Panetta was nevertheless reluctant Wednesday to claim victory before the final votes are counted.
Still, the three-time elected congressman said he is looking forward to continuing in the redrawn 19th Congressional District.
He said both the 19th Congressional District and the 20th, which he previously represented, have similar concerns.
“There’s a lot of beauty, so it’s ensuring that we’re continuing to protect our environment and reduce our carbon output,” he said. “We have a lot of bounty, so our agriculture is still an important part of who we are in the 19th District, and being on the House Agriculture Committee, I have to make sure the federal resources are there.”
Panetta also said he plans to continue focusing on affordable housing.
“Making sure that people can continue to live here and that we can house our most vulnerable, and ensuring there are continued federal programs for homelessness,” he said. “And making sure we can adjust the tax code accordingly for more low-income housing development and middle-income and workforce housing development as well.”
Panetta also touted his recent accomplishments, most notably helping to secure the final federal funding needed for the Pajaro River Levee project this year.
Panetta said the overall election results—which show Democrats doing better than predicted—indicate that the current policies are working.
“I think it demonstrates that good governing is good politics, and what we saw out of this administration with the current Senate and current Congress and the way it’s made up and the majority in place, you saw policies that were passed that actually are about affecting people’s lives,” he said. “We provided people with that evidence that we are about the people and not the politics.”
