Gavin Newsom’s Gerrymandering Gambit Pushes Republican Into Battle He’s All But Certain To Lose

A GOP lawmaker scrambling to win reelection after Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gerrymander demolished his district stunningly chose to run in a heavily Democratic seat rather than face a fellow Republican.

California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley announced Monday he will run against a crowded field of Democratic contenders to represent the Golden State’s newly drawn 6th congressional district, which former Vice President Kamala Harris won by nine percentage points in 2024. Kiley said he was considering a run against his GOP colleague, California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, in the neighboring 5th district, but decided against it, noting, “what’s easy and what’s right are often not the same.”

“It’s true that I was fully prepared to run in the new 5th, having tested the waters and with polls showing a favorable outlook in a ‘safe’ district,” Kiley wrote in a Monday post to X. “But doing what’s easy and what’s right are often not the same. And at the end of the day, as much as I love the communities in the 5th district that I represent now — and as excited as I was about the new ones — seeking office in a district that doesn’t include my hometown didn’t feel right.”

Kiley’s sprawling Sacramento Valley district — which President Donald Trump carried by four points in 2024 — was carved up and split between six different districts in the new Newsom-backed map, pushing him to run ads in the 5th district to test his name recognition there. However, the decision to mount an uphill battle in the Democratic-friendly 6th district will force him to appeal to more independents and moderates as he looks to further cement himself as a foil to Newsom.

“That’s why President Trump said no one has fought Gavin Newsom harder than Kevin,” a narrator in one of Kiley’s ads says.

In the summer of 2025, the congressman embarked on a massive media blitz to counter Newsom’s gerrymander gambit, which the Democratic governor and rumored 2028 presidential candidate shepherded as a reaction to Texas’ pro-GOP mid-decade redistricting. Kiley took the fight to the House floor at the time proposing a nationwide ban on all mid-decade redistricting — but the legislation he had authored never made it to a vote.

In February, Kiley was one of three House Republicans to break from the party to vote against President Donald Trump’s tariffs against Canada. The lawmaker in January voted to override Trump’s vetoes of a pair of bipartisan bills in January —  one funding a clean water pipeline and another granting an American Indian tribe land management authority.

Kiley railed against Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on the House floor last month for not doing more to ward off a redistricting war which, in addition to California and Texas, has also prompted Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia to take steps to redraw their lines.

California’s election system pushes the top two vote-getters in a primary, regardless of party affiliation, move onto the general election. Kiley will be competing against other Republicans Craig Deluz, Christine Bish and Raymond Reihle.

Democratic candidates for the new 6th district include West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero, Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, former California state Sen. Richard Pan and Planned Parenthood leader Lauren Babb Tomlinson.

Democratic California Rep. Ami Bera, who represents the current 6th district, is running in the newly redrawn 3rd district.

If Kiley had decided to run against McClintock, the pair would have joined Republican Reps. Young Kim and Ken Calvert who are, as a result of the newly redrawn map, competing against each other for the 41st congressional district in Southern California.