CBS News projected that Republican Rep. David Valadao lost reelection in California’s 22nd District to Democrat Randy Villegas. Valadao’s defeat means the House Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot have all either lost reelection or announced retirement; Rep. Dan Newhouse is retiring. Villegas reached the general election after winning a top-two primary over a moderate Democrat, despite establishment Democrats backing that moderate candidate. The district’s map was redrawn last year and became more favorable to Democrats than in 2024. The source reports a projected result but gives no vote totals, certification timetable, or other formal next steps.
TLDR: Randy Villegas is the projected winner over David Valadao in California’s 22nd District. The result completes the exit from Congress or retirement of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, while leaving formal election procedures unspecified in the report.
Republican Rep. David Valadao has lost his reelection bid in California’s 22nd District, CBS News projected. Democrat Randy Villegas defeated him, ending the reelection campaigns of the House Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The result is an electoral outcome, not a government policy change, and the supplied account gives no official policy rationale for it.
Valadao was first elected to the House in 2012. He lost the seat in 2018, when Democrats flipped more than 40 seats and regained control of the chamber. He won the district back in 2020 and later became one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.
His defeat leaves Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington as the only other member of that group still in Congress, and Newhouse is retiring. Valadao is therefore the last of those Republicans to lose reelection or announce retirement. The result closes a political chapter defined by a vote taken after the Capitol riot, while also marking a change in representation for the California district.
The campaign took place in a district whose political conditions had shifted. California redrew its congressional map last year in response to Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting push in Texas. The new map made the district more favorable to Democrats than it had been in 2024, according to the account of the race.
Valadao’s race also unfolded amid questions within the Democratic Party about how progressive candidates perform in competitive contests. Villegas, described as a progressive, first won a place in the general election by edging out a moderate Democrat in the state’s top-two nonpartisan primary. That result dealt a setback to establishment Democrats who had intervened in the Central Valley contest to support the moderate candidate.
The primary contest drew attention because the district is heavily Hispanic. The account notes that Hispanic voters had shifted away from Democrats in 2024, while polls leading up to the midterms showed Trump’s approval ratings with Latino voters falling sharply. Those details offered competing signals about the district’s electorate, but they do not by themselves establish why individual voters chose either candidate.
The general election followed a primary in which voters selected two candidates to advance, regardless of party. Villegas advanced alongside Valadao after winning that contest against the moderate Democrat. The supplied account does not provide vote totals, margins, turnout figures, or a detailed breakdown of voter preferences, so those measures cannot clarify how broad or narrow the final result was.
The race had national importance for Republican leaders because control of the House majority was at stake. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, campaigned with Valadao in September and described the contest as one of the country’s “top three or four races” in terms of its importance to Republicans keeping the majority. The projection therefore carried significance beyond the district, though the available information does not state what effect the result will have on the House balance.
Valadao’s earlier electoral history shows that the district has changed hands before. His 2018 loss came during a year when Democrats flipped more than 40 House seats. His return in 2020 demonstrated that he could regain the seat, but the latest contest ended his effort to remain in Congress. The result also underscores how redistricting and party competition can alter the conditions facing candidates from one election cycle to another.
The immediate practical impact is a change in the district’s House representative: Valadao loses the seat, and Villegas is the projected winner. The source gives no specific transition date, compliance requirement, new form, fee, enforcement step, or deadline tied to the result. The directly affected parties are the candidates, their parties, and voters in California’s 22nd District; the account does not describe other concrete administrative effects.
The next step in the process is not detailed in the supplied account, which reports a CBS News projection rather than a final certification notice. No additional oversight schedule or deadline is provided. Any formal follow-up and confirmation remain necessary steps in completing the election process, and the available facts establish the projection without supplying further procedural detail.
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