Republican Rep. David Valadao says he and President Donald Trump have an “open line of communication” despite Valadao’s vote to impeach Trump in January 2021.
“My goal is to represent my district, and I hope the president sees that,” Valadao told Reese Gorman on the latest episode of the On NOTUS podcast. “I’m not sure if the president pays attention to actual individual members as much as we think he does.”
Valadao, a California dairy farmer who is now one of the more moderate members of the GOP conference, was one of only 10 House Republicans to vote for impeachment in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He is one of only two still in office.
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“I see him regularly, talk to him regularly,” Valadao said of the president. “We have an open line of communication, and I think they understand that I represent one of the districts that they need, and they want us to win, and they seem to have been supportive so far. So I’m going to just keep doing my job. And if it works out, great, if not, we’ll go back to milking cows.”
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Valadao doesn’t think the 2026 midterm elections will be a blue wave like 2018, even with Trump back in the White House and health care at the forefront of national attention.
“I just don’t see it like that year,” Valadao said. “I mean, that year seemed like every week a large group of people, the amount of phone calls, all the stuff we were dealing with, was dramatically different.”
Valadao, who began representing California’s 21st Congressional District in 2013, narrowly lost his seat in 2018 to Democrat TJ Cox when Democrats took back the House during Trump’s first term. Valadao won the seat, which has since been redistricted to become the 22nd Congressional District, back in 2020.
Valadao said he hasn’t seen the same kind of left-wing enthusiasm that spurred major Democratic wins in 2018 less than a year out from 2026 races.
“Do I worry about the enthusiasm on the Republican side? Absolutely,” Valadao said. “And that’s something that we’ll have to manage as we go forward. But I think both parties are really struggling with the enthusiasm on their side.
On NOTUS is a weekly podcast in which host Reese Gorman talks to lawmakers about how they got to Washington and what motivates them. You can download or listen here.
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