Democratic congressional candidate Josh Harder pitches himself as a "fifth-generation resident of California’s Central Valley" to the constituents of the 10th Congressional District, but he didn't vote in any state elections in the district before filing to run for Congress last April.
Harder has been eligible to vote within his district since November 2005, but before filing to run he only voted in the 2008 presidential primary election and the 2016 presidential election, according to the Stanislaus County office for the Registrar of Voters.
While Harder grew up in Turlock and attended Modesto High School because of its baccalaureate program, he left the area to study at Stanford University. After graduation he worked as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group for three years before taking a leave of absence to organize small farmers in Kenya and Uganda on behalf of the Gates Foundation and other nonprofits. He then studied in the MBA / MPP Joint Degree program at the Harvard Business and Kennedy Schools.
After graduating with two degrees from Harvard, he moved to the San Francisco area to serve as the Vice President of Bessemer Venture Partners, a prominent tech investment firm between 2014 and 2017. Following his stint at the tech investment firm, he moved back to his hometown in Turlock and announced that he was running for Congress, saying that he had been "frustrated and tired of standing on the sidelines."
Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, slammed Harder's voting record, asking how Californians could cast their vote for someone that didn't have time to cast votes for any California candidates.
"Bay Area liberal Josh Harder’s voting history is as thin as his understanding of Central Valley values," Pandol said. "Why should Californians cast their vote for a man who couldn’t be bothered to vote for anyone but himself?"
Harder will be facing incumbent Rep. Jeff Denham (R., Calif.) this upcoming November in the general election.