OPINION: Redding Conservatives Should Vote for Niman to Save Them from Democrat Jared Hufman

Last Fall, Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area Democrats gerrymandered half of California’s remaining Republican members of Congress out of office. Nowhere was this nasty power grab more obvious and harmful than Shasta, Siskiyou, and Modoc Counties. Once properly included with their sister Counties in the Sacramento Valley in a cohesive and politically conservative Congressional district, these counties were long and ably represented by the late Doug LaMalfa, a genial and hardworking farmer turned representative who went to Washington without ever being flipped into a Beltway Swamp creature. Doug captured the spirit of the rural and natural resource focused communities and local economies of the I5 corridor north of Sacramento. A reliable and reasonable Republican for North State conservatives.

But, Doug being a Republican, he had to go in the eyes of the Democrat powers in Sacramento. There was a problem of course: no Democrat could win the heavily Republican seat as it was drawn by California’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. 

Newsom’s solution? Cast aside the non-partisan commission’s work through legislative chicanery, and dismember Doug’s district. Cut it in three and toenail each piece onto a heavily Democratic coastal district. Now Redding, once the most populous city in a conservative district, is badly outnumbered by Marin and Sonoma County liberal Democrats.

Before his untimely passing in January, LaMalfa faced a steep uphill climb to win in this new mismatched district. But he was the one Republican who stood a chance of pulling it off were he still with us.

After his passing, no Republican with any name ID, organization, or money joined the race. A few local Republicans have tossed their hat in the ring, but they obviously have no shot at winning the general election and are unlikely to even advance in the top two primary now underway.

The stakes are high, since the incumbent coastal Democrat, Marin County’s Jared Huffman, is no mere liberal. He is Mr. “Tear down the dams, throw the ranchers off of public lands, release the wolves, let the forests burn, proudly the only open atheist in Congress.” You couldn’t get a worse choice to misrepresent Redding no matter how far you looked.

If Norcal conservatives want to avoid this fate, they need a candidate who can represent their economic and natural resource interests in DC, and compete with Huffman in the coastal counties of the new district.

That choice is Nicolette Hahn Niman. She is the mother of two boys, a rancher who is well known for her published books defending beef production, a lay leader in her church, and a passionate and intelligent advocate for rural natural resource-based communities and economies. She is a local school board member who got her small rural district back to in-person schooling as soon as possible post-COVID, long before most public school districts resumed in-person learning. She served in her twenties on her hometown city council, and was courted by both parties to run for Congress at the time. She knows what she is doing.

She may not be a Republican, but neither is she a Democrat. She has never belonged to either party. In ordinary times she might not be a great fit for a coastal district (liberal enough but not woke progressive) or an inland district (passionate for rural communities but not MAGA).

But there is nothing ordinary about these times or this race. Redding has been dispossessed of the Republican leaning representation it deserves. Conservative voters need to look to who will best represent their interests, and believe me friends that is not Jared Huffman. So you also need to look to who can beat him. And the only one in the race who can do that is Nicolette Niman. 

As long as Norcal conservatives are stuck in an unwilling partnership with more numerous Marin County progressives, an independent voice like Niman is the only good choice.

So whether you mail in your ballot or cast it at a polling place on election day, you should mark that ballot for independent Nicolette Niman to fend off Jared “Wolfman” Huffman.

Maybe . . . think of it as Doug’s revenge.