Winner, Winner: Dr. Jasmeet Bains on public service and public health
Dr. Bains represents the people of the Central Valley, not Party interests.
Last month, a new SuperPAC called Lead Left was filed out of a Staples in Tallahassee with no disclosed donors and a left-coded, anti-Trump pitch. The SuperPAC immediately started dumping millions into Democratic primaries in three of the most competitive districts on the 2026 map.
Then Punchbowl News reported that WinRed, the Republican version of ActBlue, was embedded in the site's metadata. The "progressive" group was wired into GOP fundraising infrastructure, it is a Republican operation to pick the Democrats they'd rather run against in November. In California's 22nd, Republicans aren't even bothering to hide it: the Congressional Leadership Fund has spent nearly $60,000 on mailers branding primary challenger Randy Villegas as a "lifelong Democrat" who "opposes President Trump's policies," a transparent attempt to boost him with Democratic voters.
The message is unmistakable. Republicans see Dr. Jasmeet Bains as the candidate they don't want to face. But several leftwing groups—including David Hogg's SuperPAC, Leaders We Deserve, along with the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Working Families Party—are also dumping resources into the race using nearly identical messaging to boost her far-left primary opponent, Randy Villegas. This is the Left-Right Pincer in action. Dynamic leaders like Bains get whacked from both the purity-test left and a Republican Party that can't beat a pragmatic candidate in the general election.
In today’s episode of the Winner, Winner podcast, I’m in conversation with Dr. Jasmeet Bains, who’s running for Congress in California’s 22nd congressional district against Republican David Valadeo.
Dr. Bains is a frontline physician and California State Assembly member. The first South Asian woman elected to the Assembly, Dr. Bains has been a fearless, independent voice and vote, bucking special interests to protect the Central Valley’s economy and healthcare access.
California’s 22nd congressional district sits in the Central Valley, anchored in Bakersfield and stretching north toward the Fresno suburbs. It is a heavily working-class district shaped by agriculture, energy, and logistics, where voters are primarily driven by the cost of living, water access, fuel prices, and job stability.
Following new maps adopted after Proposition 50 in 2025, CA-22 has been significantly reshaped, altering its political landscape ahead of the 2026 cycle. CA-22 now has a PVI of D+1, and Trump won the district by 1.8 points in 2024. The district is on the DCCC’s Red to Blue list for the 2026 cycle.
Here on the Winner, Winner podcast by Welcome, we speak with the Democratic Party candidates who prove they can win the middle, beat Republicans on Trump turf, and recalibrate the party to the median voter. Here at Welcome we work to strengthen a centrist faction that wins and governs responsibly. We support centrist Democrats running in Trump districts through WelcomePAC.
In this episode, Dr. Bains highlights the relationship between her public health and public service careers. Being a member of the California Assembly and congressional candidate hasn’t stopped Dr. Bains from seeing patients; she still does hours in the clinic most weekends!
Dr. Bains also emphasized her commitment to serving her constituents over party interests:
I grew up in an area where politics is very divisive, and people don’t even want to hear about politics.
My parents immigrated here. We are happy and proud Democrats. It’s the party of immigrants. It’s the party that really worked toward protecting immigrants, and that was important to my mother and father and my grandparents.
I’ve been a Democrat my entire life, and I’m proud of it. But at the same time, when you were elected to represent an area, I think a lot of politicians quickly forget that it’s the voters you are representing; it’s that area, that district, and the constituents. You’re not representing the Democratic Party, you’re not representing the Republican Party — you’re representing those people who voted for you.
When I got up to Sacramento, the very first vote I took was not to destroy oil and gas, which my community relies on for jobs and for health care. I had first-hand knowledge of that when I was out in Taft providing care. As the only doctor out there, I saw the demonization of the oil industries. What I saw as a doctor was people losing access to healthcare insurance and people who died because they could not get access to life-saving medications.
In a lot of ways, the Central Valley was left behind in a pursuit of a transition. And then people get very divisive, “Oh, you’re against transition.” No. This is about listening to the other side, not getting so into the, “I’m right, everybody else is wrong.” Please take a second. Listen to the stories of why people do certain things.
Why was Dr. Bains the only Democrat in the entire legislature who voted against decimating oil and gas? Dr. Bains represents a community that relies on that for jobs, and that’s access to healthcare. You cannot fight corporations and also fight for access for healthcare at the same time because the reality is those corporations are providing access to healthcare insurance in those areas.
Because of the policies, because of the decimation of industries in the Central Valley, now we have the most amount of patients in the state and country that rely on Medicaid because those private insurances were being provided by the industry.
Sacramento shut down our industries, which is access to private insurance. Any physician can tell you we want our patients to have good private healthcare insurance. Medicaid is a band-aid; it doesn’t cover anything, and there’s always changes and cuts to it. And then you have D.C. that cut it by a trillion dollars and added work requirements in an area that has inadequate access to jobs.
You literally took away everything from this community overnight.
My constituents are people who don’t care about Democrat or Republican because they’ve been screwed by both. My independent streak happens because I’m a doctor…This is an area that’s very unique, and there is not a cookie-cutter solution for this community, and that’s why you cannot have extremists who represent this community.
My [primary] opponent likes to say he is fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party. I’m fighting for the soul of the valley. I’m fighting for my community, not fighting for a party, not fighting to represent this or that. The only thing that Dr. Bains is fighting for is for the Valley… because it’s my constituents, my voters who I will always listen to over any political idea or anything political party because this is a very unique area.
The things I saw and my experiences in rural California are what shape me and what I bring to the floor of the Assembly. And it’s my experiences in the clinic because I get to see in real time the impacts of legislation as I go back to provide healthcare on the weekends.
This is an area that needs a person who’s not going to adhere to fighting for the soul of a party but are going to be strong and say, “I’m fighting for the soul of the Valley. I am here to represent the Valley,” and has really done the work, been out to those areas, provided services, and listened not to a party but listened to the people and what their needs are.
You can support Dr. Jasmeet Bains in CA-22 via the Win the Middle slate here.