By Joseph Lord
Contributing Writer
Five California Republicans are poised to potentially lose their seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in upcoming elections as the California Legislature moves forward with an effort to redraw the state’s maps.
This week, the California Legislature came back to Sacramento for a special session called by Gov. Gavin Newsom to respond to ongoing efforts by Texas to increase Republicans’ hold of the Texas House delegation by five seats.
The California proposal does the same for Democrats, targeting five Republican seats by pouring new Democratic voters into the districts.
Newsom has proposed — and is encouraging the passage of — a new referendum to temporarily bypass the state’s nonpartisan districting commission and allow the voting public to approve the Democrat-proposed maps. It would go through the California Legislature as the Election Rigging Response Act.
Here are the Republicans who would be affected by the newly drawn congressional map.
Kevin Kiley
The 3rd Congressional District would shift from including Death Valley to including parts of Sacramento, which is a Democrat-run city.
The district went for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election by just three percentage points.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, who was first elected in 2022, criticized Newsom for trying to effectively oust him from Congress.
“Newsom … gerrymandered my district in the shape of an elephant. The ‘trunk’ captures as many Democrat voters as possible,” he wrote in an Saturday post on X. “Like all his attempts, this will fail. We’ll keep beating him at the ballot box and the Capitol.”
Kiley has introduced legislation that would prohibit mid-decade redistricting, including efforts by his party in Texas.
Doug LaMalfa
Trump won the 1st Congressional District by double digits in 2024. Under the newly drawn map, it would have gone to then-Vice President Kamala Harris by double digits.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa has decried the newly drawn map, including his redrawn district.
“If you want to know what’s wrong with these maps – just take a look at them. How on earth does Modoc County on the Nevada and Oregon Border have any common interest with Marin County and the Golden Gate Bridge? Voters took this power from Sacramento for just this reason,” he stated in a Saturday post on X.
LaMalfa was referring to the independent commission California has to redraw the state’s congressional map.
“This is naked politics at its worst,” he added. “Mid-decade redistricting is wrong, no matter where it’s being done. Defying the voters voice is wrong.”
Ken Calvert
Under the proposal, Rep. Ken Calvert’s 41st Congressional District would become a Latino-majority district by being placed in Los Angeles County, and therefore become a pickup opportunity for the Democrats.
Like his colleagues, Calvert decried Newsom’s redistricting effort.
“A bipartisan majority of Californians oppose efforts to eliminate our Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. It only adds insult to injury to ask taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars on a special election power grab that would wipe out the commission’s work,” Calvert wrote in a Friday post on X.
He has called for the state’s independent redistricting commission to be respected.
Darrell Issa
Rep. Darrell Issa in the 48th Congressional District is also vulnerable to incursion by Democrats.
After retiring from Congress in 2018, Issa returned to his seat in 2020. In his most recent reelection, Issa won by double digits.
The changed map moves voters from the Coachella Valley into the eastern San Diego County district, which goes from a safely Republican district to one with a slight Democratic registration advantage.
CalMatters says that flipping this seat may be “the biggest reach” for Democrats on the new map.
David Valadao
Rep. David Valadao’s 22nd Congressional District in the Central Valley is also a target for Democrats.
With the redrawn map, however, as with Issa’s district, it’s far from a guaranteed loss for Valadao.
According to CalMatters, while Democrats already enjoyed a numerical voter registration advantage in the district, it often leans conservative.
The Cook Political Report, in an analysis of the redrawn maps, said that the seat held by Valadao — who won reelection by seven points in 2024 — would be “the most tenuous for Democrats to flip.”
