In a race that was largely a referendum on the role of seniority in Democratic politics, Rep. Robert Garcia, a 47-year-old sophomore lawmaker, won.
Garcia clinched the top Democratic job on the Oversight Committee during a closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday morning. He beat septuagenarian veteran Reps. Stephen Lynch and Kweisi Mfume as well as fellow second-term Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
Mfume and Crockett dropped out before the race. Garcia beat Lynch 150-63.
“I am incredibly honored to have been obviously elected as ranking member for the Oversight Committee,” Garcia told reporters. “It is, I think, an opportunity for us to continue holding the corruption of Donald Trump accountable and also doing incredible work on government reform.”
Although Garcia’s win is already being interpreted around Capitol Hill as evidence that the case for elevating lawmakers to leadership positions based on age and tenure is fading, the former mayor of Long Beach, California, did not center his campaign on generational politics.
Instead, he emphasized his ability to land a punch across the aisle and build coalitions within his own party. While Garcia has become an anti-Trump media darling in his own right — and his win Tuesday will only give him more starpower — much of his pitch to colleagues revolved around lifting their contributions to the fight against President Donald Trump’s administration in the media and in the day-to-day operations of the Oversight panel.
As Democrats struggle to orchestrate a resonant opposition to a Republican trifecta in Washington, they rallied around Garcia as an attractive messenger.
The Oversight committee has become a hub for viral partisan fireworks, from Crockett’s “bleach blonde bad built butch body” insult to Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene to Garcia quoting a Real Housewife of Salt Lake City to say he had “receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots.”
Ironically, the highest profile candidate in the race, Crockett, struggled the most to win over her colleagues. Crockett, 44, even admitted to NOTUS on Monday that she consistently received feedback that she had a reputation for not being a “team player” in the caucus.
During a crucial Steering and Policy Committee vote Monday evening, during which some 60 of the most powerful and senior lawmakers in the caucus made a recommendation for Oversight ranker, Crockett came in dead last, receiving just six votes. She withdrew her candidacy ahead of the caucus-wide vote.
“It was clear that my style of leadership is not exactly what they were looking for,” she said Tuesday morning.
“We have to move on with business,” she added.
Mfume, the former president of the NAACP, also faltered, lacking the name-recognition to make a convincing case that he could amplify Democratic opposition. He too dropped out of the race before the full caucus vote Tuesday.
“The preservation of the institution and the success of the Democratic Caucus are paramount to me,” Mfume said in a statement. “With an insurmountable task ahead and for the unity of our Party, I will not seek the position of Ranking Member on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.”
Lynch, who took over responsibilities after former ranking member Gerry Connolly died in May, also struggled to generate momentum behind his campaign. While he has served on the Oversight Committee since the 9/11 investigations, multiple Democrats complained to NOTUS throughout the race that he lacked the verve necessary to counter Republican Chair James Comer and his bench of GOP firebrands.
Garcia emerged as a consensus candidate, consistently gaining steam through the month-long race as news he privately met with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke and he won an endorsement from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — the only major caucus to endorse.
Garcia won’t have much time to celebrate. He faces his first test in the new job Tuesday afternoon during the Oversight Committee’s first transcribed interview of a Biden official, Neera Tanden, to investigate the former president’s mental fitness.
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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.