Connie Conway is going to Washington D.C., wins Nunes' seat in Congress

Valley voters are sending a new lawmaker to the US Capitol.

She's from Tulare

Tulare Republican Connie Conway has a 19% lead against Democrat Lourin Hubbard in the race to fill Devin Nunes' 22nd Congressional District seat. The double-digit lead was enough for AP to call the race just after 10 p.m. Tuesday.

“We did it! Thank you for everyone that has helped over the last few months. Now the real work begins to help get more water, fight inflation, and combat crime in our streets,” she posted on social media.

Nunes served just shy of 20 years in Washington D.C. before resigning to run former President Donald Trump's social media company.

Conway will serve the District until the end of that term, Jan. 3, 2023. She served on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors from 2000 to 2008. She represented Tulare County in the California State Assembly from 2008 to 2014. In 2010, Conway was elected as the Assembly Republican Leader.

She posted on social media Tuesday that she would focus on water and farmers.

"Today I toured the progress of the Friant Kern Canal’s Middle Reach Correction Project. This gravity flow system has lost over 60% of its capacity because of subsidence, but President Trump and local farmers are investing hundreds of millions of dollars for this project along with some state funding," she wrote. "We need to build more canals and reservoirs to keep our water here and get it to our farms and communities."

Conway is a former advertising representative for the Tulare Advance-Register.

In the 2018 election, Conway dropped out of California’s 16th Senate District seat and made an unsuccessful run for the California Board of Equalization.

Her father, John Conway, also served on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors from 1981 until 1991.

In 2019, Trump appointed Conway as California's state executive director for the USDA Farm Service Agency. The job, according to a USDA press release, was responsible for implementing Trump Administration policies and running the day-to-day activities of the state FSA office. The job was a politically appointed post, so her stay was short-lived after Trump lost his 2020 re-election bid.

Conway followed in the footsteps of Nunes, who was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as California State Director for the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Development section. Nunes went on to successfully run for U.S. Congress in 2002.

Hubbard, an operations manager at the California Department of Water Resources Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, is a Fresno State graduate who grew up in Bakersfield.

He previously worked at the Fresno County Department of Social Services, where he helped people and families sign up for government assistance programs such as CalFRESH and Medi-Cal.

His platform was based on clean water for communities, more water for farmers, cutting federal taxes on overtime pay, investing in education and creating more affordable housing.

Hubbard is married and has two young daughters.

This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Connie Conway is going to Washington D.C., wins Nunes' seat in Congress