‘The valley has been left behind’: how one of California’s poorest areas became its toughest political battleground

Both candidates have been courting voters in California’s 22nd congressional district. The district’s population is majority Latino and working-class. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

Vanessa Martinez used to work two jobs to make ends meet. Now she works three.

In another era, the 26-year-old from California’s hardscrabble Central valley could have been a poster child for the American Dream, the sort of ambitious, up-by-her-bootstraps personality that politicians of both major parties like to highlight.