San Francisco Chronicle: TJ Cox, Freshmen Democrats Focus on Local Issues

Democrats across the country are unhappy with President Trump’s threat to shut the border with Mexico, and Rep. TJ Cox is no exception.

But for the freshman Democrat from Fresno, it’s all about the cows. Local, Central Valley cows.

“Our dairy industry is already bearing the brunt of the president’s unfair and devastating trade war — and his threat to close one of the biggest markets for our dairy exporters would make things even worse,” Cox, who took the 21st District seat from GOP Rep. David Valadao in November, said in a statement.

If “all politics is local,” as former House Speaker Tip O’Neill often said, that goes double for the seven first-term Democrats who won Republican-held congressional seats in 2018.

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That local emphasis is typical for a rookie politician, especially for one who wants to make it to a second term, said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.

“They’re doing what smart first-term members do, showing voters that they care about what’s happening in their districts,” he said.

The Central and Southern California districts that Democrats flipped last fall were GOP strongholds for years and still have plenty of Republican voters. They aren’t places where a freshman Democrat wants to be known for a deeply partisan stance on the national issues in the center of the political scrum, said Douglas Herman, a veteran Democratic strategist.

“It’s super smart to do this,” he said. “You don’t want to have issues that have bumper stickers that have ‘D’ or ‘R’ on them.”

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