(CN) — For the second time in as many weeks, voters in the southern end of California's Central Valley will choose their next congressman, to replace former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
On March 5, voters in California's heavily Republican 20th Congressional District, which includes parts of Bakersfield, Fresno and Visalia, voted for McCarthy's replacement. State Assemblyman Mike Fong, a McCarthy protege who's been endorsed by Donald Trump, finished in first place with 42% of the vote. Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux came in second with 24%.
The two Republicans will face each other in the November general election, with the winner there going to Congress in January. But the remainder of McCarthy's term will be decided by a special election on Tuesday where voters will choose between nine candidates, all of whom were on the ballot two weeks ago.
If a candidate gets over half the votes on Tuesday, he or she wins. If not, the top two vote-getters will face each other in a runoff on May 29.
Fong and Boudreaux are, once again, the favorites, although Democrat Marisa Wood, a public school teacher who finished in third place in the primary just 4,200 votes behind Boudreaux, has an outside chance of making it to a runoff.
McCarthy, a one-time deli owner who financed his first business with $5,000 he'd won from the state lottery at the age of 20, served in Congress for 17 years. He eventually became speaker, making him second in line to the presidency just after vice president.
But McCarthy faced constant tension within his own party and was eventually ousted by hard-liners who resented him for working with Democrats to pass a new spending bill — making him the first speaker in history to be voted out of the role. Two months later, he resigned from Congress.
Vince Fong served as McCarthy's district director for nearly a decade before being elected to the state Assembly in 2016. When McCarthy resigned, Fong had already filed papers to run for reelection. Secretary of State Shirley Weber declared Fong ineligible to run for Congress — you can't run for two offices in one election in California. Fong sued, calling Weber's move a "unilateral expansion of her powers."
Minutes before the filing deadline, a state court judge ruled in favor of Fong, finding the law no longer applied under California's relatively new top-two primary system. Weber said she would appeal the ruling, saying in a statement, "It defies common sense to find the law permits a candidate to run for two offices during the same election."
His candidacy saved by the last-minute ruling, it was buoyed by the endorsement of both McCarthy and Trump, and a McCarthy-aligned super PAC that spent more than $650,000 to support Fong. Fong also won reelection to the Assembly as he was running unopposed.
Boudreaux, meanwhile, has worked for the Tulare County Sheriff's Department for the 37 years, starting at the age of 19 as a cadet. His second-place finish in the March 5 primary was seen as something of a surprise. When he goes up against Fong the next three times, he will be considered the underdog — although with an appeal in the Fong case still pending, anything can happen.
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