California’s 27th Congressional District – which represents parts of northern Los Angeles County, including the high desert communities of Lancaster, Palmdale and Santa Clarita – remains a key battleground race that could help determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republican Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, a former U.S. Navy pilot who was first elected to the seat in 2020, is in a tight race with Democratic challenger and former NASA chief of staff George Whitesides.
Results of a recent poll by USC, Cal State Long Beach and Cal Poly Pomona had the two candidates neck-and-neck, with Whitesides leading Garcia by just 1 percentage point (44% to 43%) among likely voters.
When undecided voters were pushed to pick a candidate, more chose Whitesides. If those undecided voters’ leanings were factored in, the breakdown would be 48% for Whitesides and 46% for Garcia, according to Christian Grose, a political science and public policy professor at USC. The survey of 522 likely voters was conducted Sept. 14-21 and had a 4.3% margin of error, Grose said.
The candidates
Garcia, 48, served as a fighter pilot in the Navy during Operation Iraqi Freedom. When he returned to Southern California he worked at U.S. defense contractor Raytheon on classified technology deals with allies in the Middle East, North America, Europe and Asia, according to his campaign website. He has also worked in real estate.
The Santa Clarita resident won his first U.S. Senate race in a special election in 2020 after the seat was vacated by Rep. Katie Hill, a Democrat. He beat then-Assemblymember Christy Smith, a Democrat, in the spring 2020 race, and then he defeated her again in two subsequent races.
But this year Garcia is facing a different Democratic challenger.
Whitesides, 50, lives in Agua Dulce. Like Garcia, Whitesides has worked in the aerospace industry. He served as NASA’s chief of staff, then as CEO of Virgin Galactic before co-founding an organization to combat wildfires.
The district
Once a conservative stronghold, the demographics of California’s 27th Congressional District has shifted. More voters are now registered as Democrats in CD 27 in part due to families from L.A.’s metro area who moved inland in search of more affordable housing, and in part due to a 2021 redistricting effort by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission that redrew district boundaries.
Just over 40% of voters in the 27th district are registered Democrats compared to 30% who are registered Republicans. Another 21.5% are registered as “no party preference.” With their voter registration advantage, Democrats are hoping to flip the seat blue.
Garcia is a Republican who beat a Democrat in the last three elections – including in 2020 when more district voters chose Joe Biden over Donald Trump for president. Garcia’s opponents have criticized him for voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020.
In an interview, Garcia said he will vote for Trump again this November, but he added that voters in his district don’t care what letter comes after a candidate’s name. Rather, he said, they care about the issues – and in particular, matters of security.
This election is “not a referendum on party politics,” Garcia said. “It’s a referendum on security. People just want security. That comes in the form of national security, economic security, border security, neighborhood security, school security.”
“This is a referendum on doing what’s right,” added Garcia, who was ranked among the top third of House members in a 2023 Bipartisan Index released by Georgetown University.
The rankings were based on how frequently a member of congress introduced bills that were co-sponsored by a colleague on the other side of the aisle and, conversely, how often they co-sponsored bills introduced by someone from the other party.
Both candidates talk about how, if elected, they would work to stem inflation, create jobs in the area so residents don’t have to endure long commutes to major job centers outside the district, improve the economy, and combat crime.
Garcia also focuses on protecting Social Security and Medicare on his website, while Whitesides mentions defending reproductive freedom.
In a campaign ad in September, Whitesides said he was a problem-solver at NASA before leading a company that created “hundreds of good-paying jobs in the Antelope Valley.”
“I’m running for Congress because politicians have created more problems than they’ve solved,” Whitesides said in the ad. “I’ll use my business experience to solve problems instead of playing politics.“
Whitesides’ campaign said he was not available to be interviewed for this story.
Grose, the USC professor, views the district as skewing slightly more Democratic, or as he put it, “purple with a light blue hue,” during a presidential election year.
Garcia’s strength as a candidate, Grose said, lies in the fact that he has the advantage as an incumbent, and his background as a war veteran resonates well with voters in the district.
Garcia was reelected in 2022 after redistricting made the 27th Congressional district more Democratic, but Grose credits that win in part to a higher voter turnout by Republicans during the midterm election. Democrats are expected to vote in higher numbers during a presidential election year, Grose said.
“On paper, this is a tied race,” Grose said. “But I’d probably rather be Whitesides.”
Attack ads
As the race heats up, both candidates have attacked the other for their voting or endorsement records.
The Whitesides campaign has criticized Garcia for not voting as a member of Congress to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election and for his past “no” vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which provides federal funding to support survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
Democrats have also gone after Garcia for his position on abortion bans. They’ve criticized him for co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act, which Democrats viewed as a national ban on abortion. The Whitesides campaign has an ad featuring a clip in which Garcia is seen saying he is “pro-life without exception.”
Garcia said in an interview that the clip was taken “grossly out of context” and that his choice of words in that moment was “probably a misspeak” because, he said, he also talked about exemptions to an abortion ban later at that same event. Garcia said he support exemptions to an abortion ban for survivors of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is at risk. He said he has no interest in passing a national abortion ban.
As for the Violence Against Women Act, although Garcia has been criticized for casting a “no” vote on an initial vote to reauthorize VAWA, the congressman noted that he voted for a subsequent bill that included reauthorizing the act.
Supporters of Garcia have also hit back against Whitesides.
A super PAC came out with an ad saying that “liberal” Whitesides had bankrolled L.A. District Attorney George Gascón’s campaign. The ad said that Los Angeles has gotten more dangerous under Gascón. It’s unclear if the ad was referring to Gascón’s 2020 campaign or his current campaign for reelection. But Whitesides’ campaign manager said in an emailed statement that Whitesides plans to vote for former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman, Gascon’s opponent in this year’s L.A. District Attorney’s race.
Gascón ran on a progressive criminal justice reform agenda and was elected to the L.A. District Attorney’s office in 2020. He has defended his record, saying homicide is down in L.A. Gascón’s opponent, Hochman, is running on a tougher-on-crime platform.
Whitesides’ campaign manager, Emma Harris, said Whitesides supports more resources for law enforcement and pointed to a statement his campaign issued in June about Whitesides’ support for Proposition 36, which would increase penalties for certain drug and retail theft crimes.
“Our Sheriffs’ Department is underfunded and understaffed, and yet they’re being asked to do more and more for our community as we grapple with real challenges in public safety, homelessness, and drug issues,” Harris said.
“That’s why (Whitesides) stood up to members of his own party to get tougher on criminals and enact stricter penalties for looting, why he’s voting for Nathan Hochman to be our next D.A., and why these false ads from (Whiteside’s) opponents come off as desperate as they are,” she added.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report currently has this race rated as “Republican toss up.”
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