Darrell Issa Returns to Congress After Victory in California’s 50th District

Former Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is returning to Congress after a victory in a new district. The Associated Press called his race on Saturday, concluding that he had defeated Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, who was running for the second time.

Issa served for 18 years as the representative of the coastal 49th district, which moved to the left — like many coastal districts in California — as wealthier residents began voting Democratic on social and cultural issues, leaving aside fiscal concerns.

He retired in 2019 after barely surviving a challenge in the 2016 presidential election. But he came back in 2020 in the 50th district, a large district whose current boundaries stretch east of San Diego inland, almost to the shore of the Salton Sea.

Campa-Najjar ran a tough race, as he did in 2018, and raised millions of dollars. He faced continued questions about his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as his grandfather was a notorious Palestinian terrorist. He ran to the center, openly opposing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and some of the Democrats’ most left-wing policies. Campa-Najjar first confronted then-Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who was under indictment in 2018 and later resigned over corruption charges.

Issa, who formerly chaired the House Oversight Committee, told Breitbart News in an interview Thursday that he was looking forward to returning to Capitol Hill and attending “freshman” orientation — an orientation that he used to give.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.