FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 15, 2026
Contact: Karina Martinez | (858)752-1262 | [email protected]
CNC Action Fund Launches Bilingual Phone Banking Campaign in Support of Randy Villegas Over David Valadao, Highlighting Contrasts on Lowering Costs for Families
CNC AF aims to reach over 200,000 voters in California’s 22nd Congressional District with information about the candidates’ oppositional positions on housing, healthcare, and other issues affecting household budgets, including food and gas prices
CENTRAL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA— CNC Action Fund (CNC AF) is mobilizing around the congressional race between incumbent David Valadao and Randy Villegas in CA-22 with an ambitious new phone banking campaign aimed at reaching more than 200,000 voters across the region. The effort marks a significant expansion of CNC AF’s role in the race and is part of a broader strategy to inform, engage, and mobilize voters around the issues shaping their families’ lives and household budgets.
At the center of the campaign is a clear contrast between the two candidates and their priorities. CNC AF is supporting Villegas for his focus on lowering costs for families, including housing, health care, food, and gas, while drawing attention to Valadao’s support for H.R. 1, The One Big Beautiful Bill, and its impact on programs and services families rely on. In 2025, Valadao voted in favor of President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which has slashed critical support for CA-22 families (including Medi-Cal and CalFresh) while also giving substantially disproportionate tax breaks to wealthy Americans and corporations.
“The race between longtime incumbent Valadao and Villegas is critically important because it could help determine control of Congress,” explained CNC AF Executive Director Hatzune Aguilar. “For Central Valley families, who controls Congress has real consequences. National policy is crushing families in the Central Valley: from tariffs and retaliatory trade policies to slashed budgets that take away health care, food assistance, and housing programs that thousands here in the Valley rely on. Valadao left us stranded while he played politics. Randy Villegas offers us something different - a leader who centers policies that support working-class families instead of walking away from them.”
Families are making difficult decisions every day about groceries, rent, health care, utilities, and other basic expenses,” added CNC AF Field Director Samantha Valadez. “We want people to understand the decisions being made on their behalf and what those decisions could mean for their families. In this campaign, Randy Villegas represents a simple priority: lowering costs and making it easier for families to get ahead. In contrast, David Valadao prioritized Trump’s corporate political allies over our working families. We’re invested in making sure families know the difference between these candidates.”
Valadez also noted that many of the phone bankers are Central Valley residents who are impacted by the same challenges they’re discussing over the phone. “Valadao wants to frame this election around ideology, but for families across the Valley, it’s about the realities they experience every day in their homes, their budgets, and their neighborhoods. These calls are personal; they are neighbor to neighbor.”
The phone banking campaign launched the afternoon of September 14th with the goal of reaching over 200,000 voters in CA-22.
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Communities for a New California Action Fund is building a new power in the San Joaquin, Central, and Imperial valleys by inspiring working-class Californians to engage, activate, and fight for social change in their communities. With the help of staff and volunteers from the very communities we serve, CNC AF organizes and educates residents about policy issues that impact our rural families and organizes to improve our neighborhoods.
