Last week the Associated Press announced Republican David Valadao had beat out incumbent T.J. Cox for his seat in California's 21st District. On Tuesday. 23ABC sat down with him to get a better understanding of why winning this race was so important to him.

"Well, we knew it was going to be close from the very beginning. And if you look at the demographics of the district and if you look at the voter registration information it's a tough race," said

Valadao. "Obviously going against an incumbent is always difficult. And we knew it was going to be close. Getting closer to election day we were preparing for a much longer count. And it ended up being a long count and we ended up successful at the end."

Valadao added that he thinks people in the 21st District understand that he truly cares and wants to make a difference. He also added that he wants to focus on working with people on both sides of the aisle to get things done.

Two main issues Valadao says he's looking forward to working on is bringing water to the Central Valley and immigration reform.