ROCKLIN, Calif. — Riling up voters to support Democratic congressional candidate Jessica Morse a few weeks ahead of election day, Robert Sherriff, a retired science teacher, wore a hat he designed himself that read, “Make America Think Again.”
The silver-mustached 63-year-old, who also wore a shirt that read “Save Democracy, vote nonfiction,” has lived in Placer County for more than 20 years. Once a more moderate, no party preference voter, Sherriff is now a registered Democrat and fed up with Donald Trump supporters like his congressman, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin.)
He thinks his conservative neighbors here in the Sierra foothills where old gold country merges with swanky Sacramento suburbia are, too.
“[Kiley] has tied himself to many of the MAGA policies, but a lot of Republicans here have become disenfranchised with all that,” Sherriff said at a Greek restaurant in a Rocklin strip mall last month where Morse held a campaign event.
Robert Sherriff, 63, hands out donation envelopes for congressional candidate Jessica Morse at a campaign event at 4 Heroes Grill in Rocklin, Calif., on Oct. 22, 2024.
(Mackenzie Mays / Los Angeles Times)
Placer County is home to more than half of voters in California’s sprawling 3rd Congressional District, a 450-mile swath of the state that spans the Nevada border from Lake Tahoe to Death Valley. About 39% of voters in the district are Republicans, but it’s bluer than it was years ago — probably in part due to a migration of residents from the liberal Bay Area to more affordable inland cities such as Rocklin and Roseville during the pandemic.
Trump beat Joe Biden here by just 1.78% in 2020.
Democrats scrambling to flip some of California’s red districts in an effort to win control of the House hope enough Republicans and independent voters will be turned off by Kiley’s Trumpisms and instead vote for Morse, a former national security expert for the U.S. Defense Department who has campaigned on popular issues such as abortion access.
Morse, 42, of Roseville, is a wildfire resilience specialist for the state who spent time in Iraq working for the federal government after studying international relations at Princeton. In 2018, she lost a bid against Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) in another attempt to turn a red district blue.
Kiley, a Harvard- and Yale-educated attorney who grew up in Granite Bay, a wealthy Placer County suburb, was considered a moderate Republican when he was elected to the California Assembly in 2016, supporting former Ohio Gov. John Kasich for president over Trump. But he has since marched further right, championing opposition to California’s vaccine and mask mandates during the worst of COVID-19.
The 39-year-old freshman congressman has emerged as a relentless critic of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fact that helped him receive Trump’s endorsement for Congress in 2022. As some Republicans have distanced themselves from the controversial presidential nominee, Kiley has remained in lockstep with Trump on issues such as immigration and gender identity; shared stages with top MAGA activists such as Charlie Kirk and frequented right-wing media.
“Kevin Kiley represents the next generation of the MAGA movement,” Morse said. “He and JD Vance are trying to normalize this, which is why we have to flip this seat.”
Jessica Morse holds a “Morse for Congress” sign alongside supporters near her campaign headquarters in Rocklin, Calif.
(Mackenzie Mays / Los Angeles Times)
Kiley’s brand is centered on a constant churn of blog posts and dissenting speeches in Congress railing against Democrats and how their policies have hurt California. In news releases promoting Morse, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has said Kiley embodies “the worst kind of hyper-partisan, power-craven politics.”
But on the ground campaigning for reelection, Kiley said that he is focused on issues such as crime and the cost of living and that politics comes up “hardly ever.” He pointed to his recent support for the Lake Tahoe Restoration Re-authorization Act alongside Democrats in Congress as a proud — and bipartisan — accomplishment.
“I get the need to try to create sort of a partisan angle on everything, it’s the nature of our current political climate. But that’s just not the way that I approach my job. And it’s frankly not the sort of feedback I get from voters,” said Kiley, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in the 2021 Newsom recall election.
Just as Morse ties Kiley to Trump and Vance, Kiley ties her to Newsom. Morse was appointed by Newsom as deputy secretary of forest resources management for the California Natural Resources Agency in 2019.
His unrelenting focus on Newsom could work: More than 56% of voters in District 3 voted for Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle (R-Bieber) for governor over the Democratic incumbent in 2022.
“In this area, we have maintained a quality of life that doesn’t exist in other parts of California. We don’t have the level of waste and crime and homelessness that you have in places like L.A. and San Francisco and even Sacramento,” Kiley said during a TV debate with Morse hosted by KCRA last month. “But that could change if we don’t have the right representation.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) campaigns for governor in Clovis, Calif., in the 2021 recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom.
(Craig Kohlruss / Fresno Bee)
Kiley and his supporters have thrown water on Democrats’ attempts to make the district seem competitive in the final weeks leading up to election day, saying the support for Morse is because of her association with Newsom and not because they think they can actually flip the district.
Newsom’s Campaign for Democracy PAC recently sent supporters an email naming Morse among four candidates who could help Democrats win control of the House, painting it as a way to ensure “Trump Protection.” But the California Democratic Party has not prioritized her campaign or financed it in the way that it has done in the most competitive congressional races.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has labeled several California districts as competitive toss-ups but rated District 3 as “likely Republican.”
Trump is embraced by some constituents in the massive district, which includes conservative rural counties such as Plumas, Sierra and Inyo. Just in September, the Nevada County GOP hosted an event in Kiley’s district featuring Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and Trump ally who even Republicans have condemned for her spread of conspiracy theories.
Despite Trump’s pattern of lies, Betsy Mahan, chair of the Sacramento County Republican Party, praised the presidential nominee as “authentic” and said California voters view him as someone who keeps his word and disrupts the status quo.
“I don’t think [Kiley] is in any danger at all, to be honest,” Mahan said. “This is just gaslighting by the Democrats.”
Kiley, though, seems less sure. In a text message sent to voters by his campaign on Wednesday, Kiley said the success of his race “will come down to getting out the vote this last week” and “we need all the help we can get.”
When asked by The Times if he is worried about his district going Democrat, he said, “Every district in the country — all 435 — are competitive.”
Morse, who was beaten by Kiley in the primary by more than 13 percentage points, is optimistic.
Jessica Morse gives a speech to supporters at 4 Heroes Grill in Rocklin, Calif.
(Mackenzie Mays / Los Angeles Times)
After a debate watch party at a gyro and kebab shop in Rocklin — a suburb at the center of her district that is both whiter and more conservative than most of California — she warned that the state and nation are at a crossroads.
Supporters cheered as she told them that “the swingiest” voters can be convinced in the final days leading up to the election.
“We are going to go find them. We are going to get them,” she said. “We are going to flip the seat because the issues we face are real. They are serious. We can actually shape the future that we want and that we deserve.”