How one labor action could flip the House

Legendary civil rights activist Dolores Huerta believes California's CD-13 is the key to firing Speaker Mike Johnson

564 votes. Just 564 votes of 133,556 counted.

That minuscule margin brought John Duarte to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, helping give Republicans a slim, tumultuous, and ultimately worse-than-useless majority.

Now, Rep. Duarte is seeking his second term representing CD-13 in California’s Central Valley. And workers of the state’s storied breadbasket have a chance to teach the owner class the power of labor in a rematch that pits the incumbent against Democrat Adam Gray, the man he barely beat two years ago in the closest House race in California and the second closest in the nation.

[You can donate to Adam Gray and every House Democratic candidate in a “tossup” race here.]

“As I was driving here today, I saw a sign,” Josh Lepper, Business Manager, Laborers Union Local 1130, tells me at the beginning of a mid-September Saturday afternoon mobilization in support of Gray. “It said, ‘John Duarte for Congress. Farmer.’ And I thought, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Lepper explains that the sprawling district—including Merced County, most of Madera, and slices of Stanislaus, Fresno, and San Joaquin—is 60% Hispanic and at least 90% working class. Those many workers, not the few farmers, will decide who represents the Valley in the House, especially as redistricting has made this one of 18 districts Joe Biden would have won in 2020, now represented by Republicans.

“Over 2,500 LIUNA (Laborers International Union of North America) workers live in this district,” he says. “Figure about three family members each. That’s enough to shift this district—handily.”

Lepper tells me that LIUNA represents 500,000 construction workers and is aiming for a million members. The union is growing and winning by delivering livable paychecks despite the forces of the economy and candidates like Donald Trump, who want to cut the prevailing wage.

“I’ve had guys call me up in tears, saying their lives have been changed just by an apprenticeship.”

If anyone in California knows the power people can win by standing up to farmers, it’s Dolores Huerta.

Dolores with newly elected Senator Kamala Harris in 2017.

The civil rights legend, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez and created the rallying cry for the ages “Sí, se puede,” pinpointed CD-13 as the single district that could shift the balance in the House of Representatives and take the gavel out of Speaker Mike Johnson’s hand on January 6th, 2025. Consider it her personal Project 2025.

She tells me that Rep. Duarte’s biggest advantage has been his last name.

“They see Duarte and think, ‘Oh, that's another Mexican America and a Brazilian Central America.’ They don't realize that Mr. Duarte is actually Portuguese. Yes, he's Latino, but he's a European Latino, right?”

And it isn’t just about a name.

It’s about values for Huerta, especially given the attacks being waged by Donald Trump and his running mate, not just against undocumented immigrants but those who have followed the rules to come here and work their asses off.

“I mean, that's like his number one issue… attack, attack, attack, attack on immigrants,” she says. “Well, many of the population here are either children of immigrants or recent immigrants. And so we know that Mr. Duarte, Adam Gray's opponent, is not their friend. And he's not a friend of labor. And so this is why we have to just educate the voters to let them know who is the candidate that is going to stand up for them. And that is Adam Gray.”

Huerta’s presence at Laborers Union Local 1130 in Modesto on a sunny Saturday helped attract the state’s lieutenant governor, Treasurer, labor leaders, and over 100 members of LIUNA. Laborers from around Northern California set out to connect with the 2,291 LIUNA members and retirees living in CD-13 to ensure that they and their families would vote for Gray by November 5, Joshua Arce, a Special Assistant for LIUNA’s Northern California District Council of Laborers, tells me.

Given the extraordinary power being won by the tiniest decimals, we may look back and realize that just one action like this at one union local in one town in California could shift the balance of power for the whole nation.

As we learned from the Movement Voter Project, the best way to reach many voters who will decide this year’s election isn’t through a candidate’s campaign or party efforts that end on Election Day. It’s through outreach by community members who will still fight for them on Wednesday after all the votes are counted, like LIUNA.

Actions like this across the nation, wherever the balance of power shifts based on those who step up to bring those last few hundred or thousand people to the polls, will decide our fate as a nation.

And for Huerta, who is still fiery and sharp at 94, this election isn’t just about winning one district, the House, or even the presidency. As a woman who will go down in the history of the 20th century for as long as it’s told, she sees a lesson from the last century that she hopes no one ignores.

“I like to say to people if we had been in Nazi Germany in the late thirties, early forties if Hitler was coming to power, we would've done everything in any possible way that we could stop Hitler, stop the fascism… And that's where we're at right now in the United States of America.”

PROGRAMMING NOTE: If you know any Democrats Abroad, especially from Michigan, please invite them to join us to discuss Downballot for Democracy this Sunday, September 22.