Editor's note: This is part of a series of stories on the June 2 primary election in California. The stories include comments from candidates who agreed to interviews with The Center Square.
(The Center Square) – Two candidates for the heavily rural Congressional District 13 seat spoke to The Center Square in recent weeks about affordability, Medi-Cal and why they’re running for office against incumbent Rep. Adam Gray, D-Merced. The district is in the middle part of California.
Daniel Garibay Rodriguez
In the nearly one year since the passage of the federal government’s 2025-26 budget, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Californians in the rural Central Valley have been negatively impacted, Democratic candidate Daniel Garibay Rodriguez told The Center Square.
“It’s affecting mental health. It’s affecting social services. It’s affecting the workforce,” Rodriguez, a behavioral health manager, said. “I’m really against it because it does not deliver for the working-class people. It delivers for corporations, Big Pharma. We need to come up with creative solutions to fill those gaps.”
As someone who works in behavioral health, Rodriguez said he wants to see federal taxpayer dollars pay for community mental health clinics, increases in union wages, social services programs and affordable housing. He also said he supports tax breaks for individuals.
“There’s no way individuals should be paying more taxes than corporations,” Rodriguez said. “That’s a big problem in the Central Valley. A lot of corporations have come into the Central Valley by exploiting our labor, our land, our people, our water, and there’s no investment in return.”
Rodriguez also opposed tariffs championed by President Donald Trump, which Rodriguez said were paid for by small businesses and farmers – which the Central Valley is full of.
“In the Central Valley, the working class and farmers and small businesses are paying the price for those tariffs,” Rodriguez said. “The federal government needs to be able to come in and help small businesses with funding, helping with fertilizer, lowering costs and taking away those federal taxes on gas.”
Since the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran started, gasoline prices have risen dramatically in California, which has the nation's highest prices. AAA reported the statewide average was $6.15 a gallon on Wednesday. The average price in Merced County, where Rodriguez lives, was $6.06 a gallon.
“Oil companies are making record profits, but we’re the ones who are struggling and paying the price for this,” Rodriguez said.
According to the Federal Elections Commission, Rodriguez has not received any campaign contributions.
Vin Kruttiventi
Vin Kruttiventi, a Republican candidate for the District 13 race and business owner, said he favors lower taxes, both for individuals and corporations. Conversely, he said, he opposes a cut in tax breaks for corporations.
“When you tax corporations more, they have less to invest into the community,” Kruttiventi said. “We need more companies to be investing in the Central Valley. We need to not penalize them with more taxes.”
Many companies are leaving California, Kruttiventi said, which he views as a big problem for the state’s economy. Another problematic issue is the rising affordability crisis in the state, particularly for families who can’t afford a decent life in California, he said.
“We’re failing our kids because they can’t afford a home,” Kruttiventi said. “When I talk to high schoolers here in the valley, they complain they don’t have enough jobs to put themselves through college. So there is a real crisis that needs to be addressed.”
Kruttiventi also said he agrees with the federal government’s immigration enforcement policies, which he said is needed to deport illegal immigrants.
“What I would like to see is focus more on the criminal illegals first, rather than a blanket enforcement,” Kruttiventi said.
He also said he sees mid-decade redistricting and gerrymandering as a national issue. After Texas’ mid-decade redistricting measure passed the Lone Star State’s Legislature in the summer of 2025, California pushed ahead with its own redistricting election in November. That election, in which voters approved maps that could give Democrats the opportunity to pick up five new seats in the U.S. House in the midterm elections this November, spurred other states, including Tennessee, Ohio, North Carolina, Utah, Florida and Missouri, to do the same.
“True representation is what’s needed for the people,” Kruttiventi said. “Politics should be the last thing when we govern to make life easier for our people.”
Kruttiveni has received $876,117.68 in campaign contributions, according to the Federal Elections Commission. He contributed the two biggest monetary amounts to his campaign – $238,466.54 and $192,398.04, respectively.
The next few largest contributors to his campaign are McShane LLC, which gave four contributions between $45,000 and $48,271.50. McShane LLC also gave many other contributions under $45,000. Kruttiventi contributed to his own campaign several other times, according to campaign filings, although TLC Postal Center contributed $7,338.08. Cops Voter Guide Inc. gave $6,969, and Frontline Strategies LLC donated $6,025.
Rep. Adam Gray
The current representative for California’s Congressional District 13, Adam Gray, was elected in November 2024 and is serving his first term in Congress. In his year and a half as a congressman, Gray, D-Merced, has introduced seven bills in the U.S. House. None has passed yet, according to the federal government’s bill tracker.
Gray voted against a bill that aims to reduce taxes and increase spending for certain taxpayer-funded programs, voted in opposition to Congress’s budget bill that set budgetary levels for 2026-2034, and voted in favor of a bill that sought to implement new requirements for managing forests on federal land, among other legislation.
Gray received a total of $2.93 million in campaign contributions through May 20, according to the Federal Elections Commission, with the largest contribution by far coming from the JFW Fund. That group, which advocates for electing a Democratic majority in Congress in 2026, gave Gray $48,000.
Other campaign contributors to Gray’s re-election campaign included the Gray Whitesides Victory Fund, which contributed $40,000; Jeffries Battleground Protection Fund, which gave $30,980, and Frontline Protection Fund, which contributed $26,000. Other groups that gave between $10,000 and $20,000 included the Blue Dog Victory Fund, Democracy Summer 2026, the California House Majority Fund, the Blue Wave California Victory Fund and additional contributions from the JFW Fund.
Gray and his campaign team did not respond to The Center Square's request for an interview.
