Democrat T.J. Cox Is Running in California — But Has ‘Principal Residence’ in Maryland

Democrat T.J. Cox is running against incumbent Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) in California’s 21st congressional district, in a race Democrats say they need to win. There is one small problem: he has a “principal residence” across the country, in Maryland.

The local Fresno Bee did the digging, and discovered that Cox’s “principal residence” is officially in Bethesda, Maryland:

TJ Cox, the Fresno Democrat running for Congress against Hanford Republican David Valadao, owns a home in Bethesda, Maryland, that the state says is his principal residence.

Montgomery County property records show Terrance John Cox has paid about half of his annual property taxes on a three-bedroom, four-bathroom, Cape Cod-style home valued at $968,100 in the Washington, D.C., suburb. He bought the house for just over $1 million in 2016 and it has been claimed as his principal residence on state property tax records in each year since.

The Cox campaign told the Bee that it was Maryland’s decision, not Cox’s, to list that home as his “principal residence,” adding: “TJ Cox proudly lives, works and raises his family here in the Central Valley, and has for the past 20 years.”

Cox seems to be flexible about where he runs, at least: he had been planning to run against Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) in the 10th district until Valadao’s 2016 opponent, Emilio Huerta, dropped out. Cox then switched districts to run in the 21st.

Valadao is still running strong, even though voters in his district chose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016 by 16 points. In the June 5 “jungle” primary, he defeated Cox by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. He was up 11 points in a recent poll.

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.