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Kevin McCarthy's protégé Vince Fong wins the ex-speaker's vacant seat in a victory that could be a warning sign for Matt Gaetz-type GOP insurgents
Kevin McCarthy-backed Vince Fong has beat out a Republican challenger to take the former speaker's congressional seat that has been empty since last year.
Fong will now serve in Congress for the next seven months and have the incumbent advantage in the November election.
He will boost the razor-thin House GOP majority that only allows for one Republican defection to pass party-line legislation.
The Bakersfield Assemblyman is a former top aide of McCarthy, who retired in December after being ousted from the speakership, a role he worked his entire career to achieve and held for nine months.
McCarthy's backing proved to be a win for establishment-type Republicans over burn-it-all down types like Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, who prompted the movement to oust McCarthy.
Kevin McCarthy-backed Vince Fong has beat out a Republican challenger to take the former speaker's congressional seat
Fong, 44, served as McCarthy's district director for more than a decade.
McCarthy had taken the seat in 2007 after the retirement of his former boss, Rep. Bill Thomas, then chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Fong worked for Thomas alongside McCarthy for a time.
The full force of McCarthy's campaign dollars, fundraisers, consultants and affiliated PACs made the race against local sheriff Mike Boudreaux not particularly close.
Fong also won former President Donald Trump's endorsement, with McCarthy's help, in a district where 47 percent of registered voters are Republicans and 27 percent are Democrats.
Boudreaux acknowledged the forces working against him ahead of the election.
'I am the underdog,' Boudreaux told a crowd of supporters. 'I am pushing back against a machine that is so powerful that it's very challenging, to say the least.'
Mike Boudreaux, Tulare County sheriff, lost to Fong
'The McCarthy machine is huge,' Boudreaux said, adding it is 'daunting, to say the least,' to run against it.
The two candidates had highly similar policy platforms: securing the border, cutting taxes and working on water improvement and energy production for the region.
Fong nearly tripled Boudreaux's fundraising numbers by May 1: $1.5 million to $425,000.
McCarthy's backing proved to be a win for establishment-type Republicans over burn-it-all down types like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who prompted the movement to oust McCarthy.
Boudreaux, though not as hard right as some already in the House GOP conference, was up against the Bakersfield political machine that has propelled longtime political operators to Congress in Fong and McCarthy and ex-Rep. Bill Thomas before them.
Just between a McCarthy-linked PAC and Nevada-based Conservatives for American Excellence, a pro-Fong PAC collected nearly a million dollars ahead of the race. Conservatives for American Excellence seeks to boost mainstream Republicans to counter the anti-establishment Club for Growth and the far-right Freedom Caucus.
The top two vote getters, regardless of party, advance to a runoff if none get a plurality of votes under California's system. Fong and Boudreaux were the top two vote getters in a March special election.
Fong will face off against Boudreaux again in the November race for the full term.