When redistricting broke up his current district, Harder moved to the city of Tracy, which is within the boundaries of the new 9th district. He points to his family’s history in Manteca, where his great-great-grandfather settled and started a peach farm.
The congressman, 36, was born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley. He graduated from Stanford and Harvard Business School and worked as an executive of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm before returning in 2017 to run for Congress. In 2018, he unseated Republican Jeff Denham, who had represented the area for years.
Harder has worked on water access and storage, once wading through wetlands in Los Banos with California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials to learn how nutrias, a type of swamp rat, were damaging the Central Valley’s levees and ecosystem. He has also focused on lowering the cost of prescription drugs and bringing agricultural technology and IT jobs to the valley.
On the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors, Patti, 50, helped launch a housing project for veterans and secured funding for a community college’s apprentice program. Patti owns his family’s Delta Crane equipment company.
The Stockton resident has been vocal in his opposition to vaccine requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. He helped pass a board resolution prohibiting county offices from requiring people to show vaccine proof to gain entry and lauded In-N-Out Burger for “fighting against bullies” after Contra Costa County shut a restaurant down for not checking customers’ vaccination status.
In 2018, Patti was arrested after a collision on Interstate 5. San Joaquin Superior Court records show that he was charged with a misdemeanor DUI in the accident, in which there were no injuries. The state attorney general’s office amended the criminal complaint to a reckless-driving misdemeanor, and Patti, who said he accidentally took the wrong medication, pleaded no contest. Records show he was sentenced to conditional probation for one year.
A former amateur boxer who trained with Mike Tyson, Patti won state and Golden Gloves championships and considered a pro career in the 1980s. Tyson appeared last year at a Beverly Hills fundraiser for Patti.
