California MAGA Republican, praising Speaker ousting, to run against Kevin McCarthy in 2024
Ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy picked up a Republican challenger for his San Joaquin Valley congressional seat.
Business owner and former teacher David Giglio announced he would run against McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, in California’s 20th Congressional District.
Giglio, who proclaims himself as a MAGA Republican in ardent support of former President Donald Trump, said in a statement announcing his candidacy that McCarthy was not conservative enough and “failed the American people.”
“After years of being sold out to special interests,” Giglio said, “the people of the Central Valley deserve an America First Republican fighting for them in Washington and working alongside President Donald Trump to WAGE WAR against the corrupt uniparty!”
Giglio’s challenge comes four weeks after McCarthy was voted out as Speaker of the House of Representatives by eight Republicans and all Democrats. Last week, Republicans settled on little-known conservative Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to be speaker.
GOP hardliners were dissatisfied when McCarthy used a last-minute bipartisan option to push off a government shutdown, leading Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, to call for a vote to vacate him. Both Republicans and Democrats who voted against McCarthy’s speakership said he was untrustworthy.
Giglio agreed, saying in a statement that McCarthy was removed by “8 courageous members of his party for failing to keep his promises and capitulating to Joe Biden and the radical Democrats.”
Who is David Giglio?
In 2022, Giglio ran in California’s 13th, a bluer agricultural expanse stretching around Merced County. Rep. John Duarte, R-Modesto, won that seat by 600 votes last year. Giglio lost in the primary.
Giglio owns CaliCards & More, a business in Clovis where he buys and sells sports cards and collectibles. He previously taught high school history.
Monday, Giglio pitched himself as an America First Republican, someone who will “secure the southern border, stop the weaponization of government, drain the corrupt swamp, and annihilate permanent Washington.”
Originally from Connecticut, Giglio moved with his wife to the Central Valley several years ago for her career as a nurse practitioner. They live in Madera Ranchos with their one-year-old son, he said in an interview Monday.
He spoke at length about updating education policies and a California water plan, adding that it’s measures were commonsense and born from bipartisanship. He said this all folds into being “America First.”
“I know it gets a little bit of a stigma, but I don’t think there’s anything radical about it at all,” he said in an interview Monday. “I think it’s actually rather moderate because like I said, I think there’s a lot of things that America First Republicans and even some of the progressive side can work together on.”
McCarthy in Congress
Troubles for McCarthy’s speakership started when it took 15 rounds of votes and a series of concessions to far-right Republicans for him to earn the gavel in January. Throughout McCarthy’s nine-month speakership, Freedom Caucus members have decried his reliance on Democrats to pass key legislation and threatened to oust him.
But McCarthy has seen far more success in seeking election in California’s 20th, a deep-red district that extends into northeast Fresno and Clovis, parts of Hanford and Visalia, and Tehachapi into west and northeast Bakersfield. The three-arm-shaped district covers parts of Kern, Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties.
McCarthy, a prolific fundraiser who has a more than $10.6 million in campaign cash, has never had a tough election in the Bakersfield area.
First elected to Congress in 2006, McCarthy rose swiftly to the GOP’s third-in-command as majority whip in 2011. The 58-year-old became the majority leader in 2014 and held the role until Democrats took control of the House in 2019. He was the first California Republican to be House minority leader.
McCarthy’s future
Speculation rose about whether McCarthy would stick after being removed as speaker. In the days after the ouster, reports said McCarthy was ambiguous about his congressional future. Many speakers who were forced out or stepped down either resigned or did not seek re-election to Congress.
McCarthy shut down that speculation, saying that he would seek re-election in 2024.
“I got a lot more work to do,” McCarthy told reporters outside the House speaker’s office in early October.
Still, McCarthy has not made a formal campaign announcement. He has a handful of challengers — Democrats, Republicans and an Independent. Candidates have until mid-December to file necessary paperwork to run in 2024.
This story was originally published October 30, 2023 at 1:08 PM with the headline "California MAGA Republican, praising Speaker ousting, to run against Kevin McCarthy in 2024."
