LOS ANGELES — Four House members accused of sexual misconduct have resigned, retired or lost reelection this year. In November, voters in California will decide whether to return to Congress next session a fifth member facing allegations of harassment and assault.
With just a few weeks remaining before the midterm elections, upstart progressive Angela Gonzales-Torres is racing to get the word out about an ethics investigation into Rep. Jimmy Gomez as she seeks to unseat her fellow Democrat.
Gomez has represented a liberal, predominantly Latino area around downtown Los Angeles for five terms — and survived four consecutive, and frequently close, reelection challenges from the left since he arrived in Washington in 2017.
Although few details have emerged about the allegations against Gomez and nothing has been publicly substantiated, Gonzales-Torres argues that the community is primed for change.
She pointed to the cultural reckoning earlier this year over rape and child abuse accusations against the late farmworker and labor rights activist Cesar Chavez, a California and Latino icon, as well as the recent outrage about an alleged gang rape at Cornell University.
“We want better, and it just so happens that it’s influencing our race in a positive way,” Gonzales-Torres said in an interview as she canvassed the Eagle Rock neighborhood on Sunday afternoon.
Gomez appeared set to turn back the challenge from Gonzales-Torres, a democratic socialist, when he earned nearly half the vote in the June primary.
Then in August, the House Ethics Committee announced an investigation into claims that Gomez had engaged in “inappropriate sexual contact with a House staffer” in violation of House rules. In a statement at the time, Gomez acknowledged “mistakes outside my marriage” and said he would cooperate with the review, which appears to be ongoing.
Days later, a Washington law firm released a statement on behalf of an unidentified woman who said she was interviewed by the committee “about her experience of sexual harassment and assault” by Gomez. The congressman has maintained that his “actions were consensual in nature,” and the law firm declined to provide further details about the claim, which The Washington Post has not been able to independently corroborate.
Gomez has largely flown under the radar since the ethics investigation was announced, although his social media accounts still occasionally post about community visits in his district. His campaign would not make him available for an interview.
The investigation provided a new opportunity for Gonzales-Torres, who finished second in the June primary with 31 percent. Because of California’s open primary system — under which the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff regardless of party — she will face Gomez again in November.
But first Gonzales-Torres must reach a relatively elusive electorate in the 34th Congressional District, a heavily immigrant area that has the fifth-lowest voter registration out of California’s 52 House seats. The 2024 race drew fewer votes than all but one other district in the state.
“This is a historically poor and overlooked district,” Gonzales-Torres said. “I am happy to do the work, if I have to, to let people know who their congressman is.”
A 31-year-old activist who works for a program that supports formerly incarcerated college students, Gonzales-Torres was running against Gomez well before the sexual misconduct investigation became public. She is the latest standard bearer for a local progressive movement that has been trying, cycle after cycle, to oust the congressman.
Gomez, 51, is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who supports many of its priorities, including Medicare-for-all. He has been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which has heavily targeted his district, and he founded a caucus for fathers in Congress to advocate for programs to support working families.
But progressive activists in the district have been skeptical of Gomez since he first won the seat in a 2017 special election. They complained at the time that the Democratic Party establishment coronated him, and they have fielded challengers to Gomez in every election since, coming within three percentage points of defeating him in 2022.
Gonzales-Torres said she was compelled to run against Gomez because he has supported Israel as it launched a deadly war in Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and voted against legislation to cut off aid to the country. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent millions of dollars to help Gomez hold on to his seat in 2024.
“We are an anti-war community. My culture has been anti-imperialist,” said Gonzales-Torres, adding that she was raised in the Chicano activist movement and grew up protesting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “How long are we just going to accept we can’t afford to fund people, but afford these bombs?”
Gomez’s campaign declined to answer specific questions about Gonzales-Torres’s criticisms of his record and the sexual misconduct allegations against him.
In a statement, Gomez touted a successful lawsuit he jointly filed to ensure that members of Congress can visit immigration detention facilities and legislation he introduced to redirect $175 billion in funding from immigration enforcement agencies to housing. That bill has not received a vote.
“Anyone can promise to stand up to Donald Trump, but I’ve proven I can take him on and win,” Gomez said. “This election will determine who stands on the front lines when Donald Trump or anyone else threatens our democracy or tries to overturn the will of the voters.”
The allegations against Gomez are far vaguer than those against his colleagues, which became known publicly through high-profile news stories and court cases.
In April, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) resigned after he was accused of sexually assaulting a former staffer, which he denies, and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) resigned after acknowledging an affair with a former member of his staff who later died by suicide. Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-North Carolina) dropped his reelection bid in August after the House Ethics Committee censured him for what it deemed inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers. Rep. Cory Mills (R-Florida), who was accused of harassing and threatening an ex-girlfriend, lost his primary that same month; he says those allegations are false and politically motivated.
Past allies have not rushed to Gomez’s rescue this year, and there has been no spending from AIPAC — which did not respond to a request for comment — to boost his campaign again. Two political action committees that back Latino candidates, Bold America and Nuestro PAC, dropped about $450,000 into the race just this week to support Gomez. Neither responded to questions about why they only recently entered the campaign.
Meanwhile, Guardrails Alliance, a group that advocates for national regulation of artificial intelligence, announced a $1 million buy this month for a series of digital ads highlighting Gomez’s ties to Trump-aligned tech donors, as well as the sexual misconduct allegations. In recent days, the political action committee Progress Action Fund put $100,000 into a streaming ad that warns, “Jimmy Gomez is being investigated for sexual assault.”
It could take a lot to get the district — an overwhelmingly working-class community dotted by gentrifying neighborhoods — to pay attention.
Walking a dog around MacArthur Park, the site of high-profile immigration raids since Trump’s return to office last year, Noelani Thorp said that she had not heard about the allegations against Gomez and that it’s not something people in her social circles would worry about.
Thorp, a 34-year-old resident of the Westlake neighborhood, instead criticized Gomez as being absent while the community struggles. The economy is so bad, she said, that she can find work only as a dog sitter despite having multiple engineering degrees. The district, which encompasses Skid Row, is a hub of homelessness in Los Angeles.
“You would be surprised to know there’s anyone who cares,” she said. “At this stage, it feels like the federal politicians have checked out.”
What’s happening in Congress is also not much on Thorp’s radar. She pointed down the block, where a Korean church group was distributing food.
“If your basic needs aren’t met, how can you care what’s happening in Washington?” she said.
With a shoestring budget in one of the most expensive media markets in the country, Gonzales-Torres has an uphill battle to try to convince voters that she’s a worthwhile alternative.
She said she is using the allegations against Gomez as an entry point to talk to voters who might not have considered her before, while focusing her limited digital advertising on a positive message about her agenda. Her campaign has sent 70,000 handwritten postcards to registered voters.
At Sunday’s canvassing event, Gonzales-Torres conducted short interviews with a gaggle of social media creators, who asked about the allegations against Gomez. Eliana Chinea, who recorded a video with Gonzales-Torres, said she wanted to help progressive candidates make up for the corporate money that their campaigns lack.
“They’re not getting the millions of dollars,” she said. “So they need the grass roots to really come out for them.”
Progressive groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats have also provided crucial endorsements that connected Gonzales-Torres to their national networks.
Activist David Hogg — whose organization, Leaders We Deserve, is working with Gonzales-Torres on fundraising, strategy and social media content — attended the Eagle Rock canvassing, where he told volunteers that Democrats need to “have the courage to hold ourselves as accountable as we say we want to hold Republicans” and remove abusers from power.
“We need people to know about the allegations” against Gomez, Hogg said in an interview. The race is “not just the same dynamic as last time, with the same information.”
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