Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) is accusing Democrat challenger Josh Harder of inflating his resume as a college “professor” when his teaching experience at a local community college is actually very thin.
The claims are the latest to fly in the race for the 10th congressional district, one of the country’s closest-fought.
“It’s unclear what, if anything, Harder teaches at Modesto Junior College,” the Denham campaign said in a press release. “According to Modesto Junior College’s website, Josh Harder is not a faculty member. MJC records indicate Harder taught one night-class in a previous Spring semester.”
“Harder obviously just moved here from the Bay Area to run for Congress,” Denham said in the press release. “One class doesn’t make you a part of this community.”
Breitbart News reached out to the Harder campaign for comment on Wednesday, but received no response.
Harder’s campaign website claims: “Josh teaches business at Modesto Junior College where he is passing on the lessons he’s learned to the next generation.”
His then-fiancée wrote a letter to the local Modesto Bee earlier this year, describing her husband-to-be as a “professor,” adding that she hoped voters chose him as their candidate in the June 5th primary election.
The Denham campaign has repeatedly drawn attention to Harder’s Bay Area ties. Though Harder was born and raised in Turlock, he has spent most of his adult life outside the area. Harder voted in Stanislaus County in 2008, but did not vote there again until 2017. He registered to vote in San Francisco in 2016, and voted there in the general election — which also included a local ballot measure allowing non-citizens to vote for school board.
In another press release Thursday, the Denham campaign noted that Harder had raised “more than $1 million from San Francisco citizens alone.” 2.3% of Harder’s contributions come from the district, versus 18.1% for Denham.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.