Republican Mike Boudreaux advances to special election to complete term of ousted Speaker McCarthy

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux is advancing to a May election in California to decide who will complete the remainder of the term of deposed former U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which runs through January.

Boudreaux will face state legislator Vince Fong in the May 21 special election in the 20th District.

Boudreaux is the Sheriff of Tulare County in the state’s Central Valley. He has been spotlighting his decades of law-and-order experience and is promising to harden the nation’s porous border.

Republicans are expected to easily hold the seat, and the party’s fragile majority in the chamber was not at stake in this election.

The district, which cuts through the Central Valley farm belt including parts of Bakersfield and Fresno, is the most strongly Republican House seat in heavily Democratic California.

Because of Trump’s involvement, the race will be watched as a possible proxy vote on the former president’s clout as he heads toward an all-but-certain matchup against President Joe Biden in November.

McCarthy’s dramatic fall in the House — he is the only speaker in history to be voted out of the job — left behind a messy race to succeed him that has included an ongoing lawsuit and exposed rivalries within the GOP.

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