DeSaulnier defeats MAGA Republican candidate Katherine Piccinin in District 10

In a race that tested the appeal of MAGA politics in the Bay Area, District 10 Democrat incumbent Rep. Mark DeSaulnier defeated Republican challenger Katherine Piccinini Tuesday night.

While DeSaulnier has prioritized Democratic issues like women’s reproductive rights, protecting the environment and gun control, Piccinini hoped to upset him with a MAGA-aligned agenda focused on divisive cultural issues such as transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports, COVID vaccine skepticism and closed borders.

“MAGA politics don’t play very well (in District 10),” DeSaulnier told Bay Area News Group. “I want to continue the work we’ve been successful at, particularly transportation.”

DeSaulnier has won commanding victories in each of his congressional races since 2014, but Piccinini hoped to flip the district to Republicans with an explicitly MAGA agenda. Republicans have not won in District 10 since 2016, and the polling aggregation website Five ThirtyEigth identified District 10 as a “race to watch.”

DeSaulnier has served as a public official for most of his life, beginning in 1991 as a Concord city councilmember. He was first elected to U.S. Congress in 2014, and joined committees on ethics, transportation, health, education, as well as being a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“Ethics and honesty in both parties is important,” DeSaulnier said. “We need to reestablish that after this election… because of Mr. Trump, in particular, people are dissociated from the idea of trusting government.”

Piccinini has made children and family the central tenet of her campaign. The Oakley grandmother is the current president of the East Contra Costa Republican Women Federated, and a member of the Republican Central Committee for Contra Costa.

She said she “fears losing America” and promised to restore the values of “God, Family, Life and Country” to District 10 if elected. Her campaign has highlighted the school system as a source of “indoctrination, not education,” while criticizing transgender students’ participation in sports.

“I will vote for laws that protect our children from groomers, predators and biological males in girls’ sports,” Piccinini said on her campaign website.

DeSaulnier’s platform was fixed on less partisan issues among Democrats that mirror voters’ most important concerns in polling by Gallup. The congressman is prioritizing the economy, women’s reproductive rights, and “fighting against the reckless Republican agenda” that Democratic leaders have called a threat to democracy.

In the past year, DeSaulnier has keyed in on gun control and mental healthcare; topics to which he has given speeches to on the House floor. He described his personal experience with gun violence earlier this year as he sought to persuade Congress to pass gun reform legislation.

“(Thirty-five) years ago, on April 20, I lost my own father to gun suicide,” DeSaulnier said in a speech on April 11. “35 years later, we have not done enough to address this epidemic of suicide. For far too many people, they continue to lose loved ones the same way I did.”