James Andrew Vidak (born November 13, 1965) is an American politician. A Republican, he served in the California State Senate, representing the 14th Senate District, which encompasses Kings County, as well portions of Fresno County, Kern County, and Tulare County in California's Central Valley. From 2013 to 2014, Vidak represented the 16th Senate District.
Vidak was first elected to the State Senate in a 2013 special election after the resignation of former State Senator Michael Rubio, and was re-elected in 2014. He sought re-election in 2018, but was defeated by Democrat Melissa Hurtado.
Early life and career
Vidak was born in Visalia, California to James Vidak, the Tulare County superintendent of schools, and Kathleen Vidak. The eldest of five children, he graduated from Redwood High School in 1984 and then attended College of the Sequoias in Visalia and California State University, Fresno before receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Business from Texas Tech University. He returned to the San Joaquin Valley to work in the produce industry before opening his own cherry farm outside Hanford in 1997.
Politics
Campaigns
2010 congressional race
In the 2010 midterm elections, Vidak announced his intention to run for Congress in California's 20th congressional district, challenging longtime incumbent Democrat Jim Costa. The race was too close to call on election night and was only settled three weeks after Election Day. Costa ultimately won reelection with 52% of the vote against Vidak's 48%, with a total popular vote margin of 3,050, in the closest race of Costa's Congressional career up to that point.
2013 special election to the State Senate
Following the sudden resignation of incumbent Democrat Michael Rubio on February 22, 2013, the 16th State Senate seat was left vacant and a special election was called.
Vidak's main challenger in the election was Leticia Perez, a former criminal defense attorney and supervisor of Kern County's 5th district. In the May 21 primary election, Vidak appeared to win outright with over 52% of the vote, but enough late absentee and provisional ballots counted in the next few days favored Perez and pushed Vidak down to 50%, sending the race to a general election on July 23 between him and Perez. In the general election, Vidak defeated Perez with 52% of the vote compared to Perez's 48%. The popular vote margin between the two was 3,084, just barely higher than the same margin by which Vidak lost to Jim Costa three years earlier.
Vidak's win marked the first time since 1996 in which the winning state Senate candidate of a special election was not from the same party as the incumbent. It is also marked the first time that a Republican took a Democratic State Senate seat since 1993, and the 8th time overall (in regards to special elections). It was also the first time in 18 years that the 16th district has seen a Republican State Senator, since Phil Wyman represented the district briefly during 1993–95. (Then assemblyman Costa beat Wyman in 1994 and served until being termed out in 2002. He was succeeded by Democratic assemblyman Dean Florez who served from 2002 to 2010).
2014 re-election
Vidak ran for reelection, for his first full term, in November 2014. By the time of the primary, the 16th district was redrawn into the 14th district. His sole Democratic challenger was Luis Chavez from Fresno. In the June 3 primary, Vidak came in first with 61% of the vote ahead of Chavez. In the November 4 general election, Vidak defeated Chavez by a smaller margin of 54% to Chavez's 46%.
2018
Vidak announced his third run for the seat, for his second full term, in March 2018. He faced three Democratic challengers: Sanger city councilwoman Melissa Hurtado, Earlimart school board president Abigail Solis, and Ruben Macareno from Farmersville, who previously ran for California's 26th State Assembly district in 2016.
In the June 2018 primary, Vidak received 54.1% of the vote. Hurtado received the second-highest number of votes, allowing her to advance to the general election. However, in November 2018 general election, Hurtado defeated Vidak, taking 55.8% of the vote compared to his 44.2%. The margin was 16,811 votes.
Tenure as State Senator
Vidak was sworn-in on August 10, 2013.