Valadao

California Republicans in Congress are vastly outnumbered by their Democratic counterparts in the state — and it may get worse.

Five of the nine GOP seats are at risk after California voters passed Proposition 50 in Tuesday’s special election. The measure, put on the ballot by the Democratic-led state Legislature, reshaped California congressional districts in a way that was specifically designed to unseat Republican incumbents.

The new maps target areas held by Reps. Kevin Kiley and Doug LaMalfa in Northern California, Rep. David Valadao in the Central Valley, and Reps. Ken Calvert, Young Kim and Darrell Issa in Southern California. The radical reconfiguration not only put Republicans in danger, but probably protects vulnerable Democratic officeholders by adding more voters from their own party into their reconfigured districts.

Already, California’s Republican members hold just nine seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, while Democrats have 43.

Proposition 50’s passage also sets off an intraparty fight for a newly created Republican seat in Riverside and Orange counties, which will pit two GOP incumbents against one another — Calvert of Corona and Kim of Anaheim Hills — knocking one of them out of office. Calvert and Kim on Wednesday announced they planned to run for that seat.

“With the passage of Prop. 50, Californians were sold a bill of goods, allowing [Gov.] Gavin Newsom and his radical allies in Sacramento an unprecedented power grab to redraw the Congressional map and silence those who disagree with his extreme policies,” Calvert said in a statement.

Newsom and other Democratic leaders argue that redistricting, which normally happens once a decade by an independent commission, was necessary after GOP leaders in Texas redrew their own congressional districts — at the request of President Trump — in a bid to add more seats for their party and retain Republican control of the House.

The passage of Proposition 50 will boost Democratic efforts to win control of the House after the 2026 election, a victory that likely would stifle parts of Trump’s agenda and open the president and his administration to a litany of congressional investigations.

Proposition 50 is expected to exacerbate the political isolation that millions of Republicans in California already feel, especially in the state’s vast northern and inland territories, and conservative suburban enclaves.

Trump won 38% of the presidential vote in California last year. About a quarter of the state’s registered voters are Republicans. Yet, Democrats have held every statewide office since 2011, and have an iron grip on the California congressional delegation.

Some California Republicans may be left asking: “Who in Congress is representing our views and who do we turn to?” said Mark Baldassare, survey director of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Cook Political Report, which tracks elections, changed 11 California congressional district race ratings Tuesday, with all but one district moving in Democrats’ favor.

Political consultant Rob Stutzman remains skeptical that Democrats will win all five congressional seats targeted by Newsom in the 2026 midterm elections. Some of the GOP representatives have deep roots in the community and have survived past challenges by Democrats, Stutzman said.

Newsom and others “may have overpromised what Prop. 50 could do,” Stutzman said.

Here are the top six Republicans whose districts were changed by Proposition 50 and who may find their political future at risk.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)

In Northern California, LaMalfa appears likely to run in one of two redesigned districts: One that stretches toward Mendocino National Forest and south toward Santa Rosa, or another that runs along the Oregon border and down the coast to the San Francisco Bay Area.

His current district, which spreads across the deeply conservative northeast corner of California to the Sacramento suburbs, was carved up by Proposition 50 and replaced with three districts that favor Democrats.

“They’re not going to kidnap my district here without a battle,” LaMalfa, 65, said Tuesday.

Democrats running for Congressional District 1’s seat — the seat that includes Mendocino National Forest — include Audrey Denney, an education director who unsuccessfully challenged LaMalfa in 2018 and 2020.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)

Kiley’s new district takes in neighborhoods in and around Sacramento, pulling in Democratic voters and losing former Republican communities along the Nevada border.

He hasn’t said which district he’ll seek.

“My current district is split six different ways,” Kiley, 40, said Wednesday. “In that sense, I have a lot of options.”

On Tuesday night, he promised to “work across party lines to find a national solution to the age-old plague of gerrymandering, and in particular, to the more recent affliction of mid-decade gerrymandering.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford)

Valadao’s predominantly Latino district in the Central Valley extends north post-Proposition 50, gaining more registered Democrats.

Still, more Democratic voters doesn’t necessarily translate to a Democratic victory, given the conservative attitudes in the region. A dairy farmer, Valadao, 48, has survived past challenges, in part due to poor turnout among Democrats and his popularity among moderate voters in the Central Valley.

Among those who have announced their intention to challenge Valadao is Visalia school board trustee Randy Villegas, a Democrat.

Valadao was among the few Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, increasing his appeal to Democratic voters. But he could also be vulnerable because of his support for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut medical benefits for roughly two-thirds of his constituents. The representative argued his district will get concessions for rural hospitals, water infrastructure and agricultural investments in the legislation.

A Valadao spokesperson didn’t immediately respond for a request for comment Tuesday night.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Rep. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills)

Nearly all of Calvert’s district was moved north, and now takes in the Los Angeles County communities of Pomona, Ontario and Fontana.

However, Calvert, 72, announced he would run for the newly formed 40th Congressional District, which includes western Riverside County and eastern Orange County, including his hometown of Corona, as well as Murrieta and Mission Viejo. It’s a strongly Republican district now shared by Republican colleague Kim of Anaheim Hills.

“Californians in the newly drawn 40th District deserve a proven conservative they can trust and a fighter who has delivered results for Riverside and Orange County for decades,” Calvert said in a statement Wednesday. “No one else comes close to my record of service to the new 40th. I’ve lived here my entire life and already represent the majority of this district in Congress.”

Calvert praised Trump’s economic record and efforts to “secure our borders,” a direct appeal to the president’s MAGA base living in the region.

Michael Moodian, public policy researcher at Chapman University, expects Calvert will face a “tough fight” with Kim in the 2026 election.

Calvert is the longest-serving Republican member of California’s congressional delegation and is well known among voters in the area, while Kim is a strong fundraiser and has a moderate tone given that her current district is politically divided, Moodian said.

Kim, 63, one of the first Korean American women elected to Congress, last year won a third term.

Kim on Wednesday boasted that she was one of the most prominent Republican fundraisers in Congress and had a proven record of winning tough races.

“I’m running because California needs proven fighters who will stand with President Trump to advance a bold America First agenda that restores law and order in our communities, strengthens our national security, and protects the American Dream for future generations,” Kim said in a statement.

Calvert has survived previous redistricting rounds, including in 2021, when the overwhelmingly liberal Palm Springs — the first city in the nation to elect an all-LGBTQ+ city council — was added to his district and the Republican-heavy Temecula was taken out.

In 2024, Calvert fended off former federal prosecutor Will Rollins, besting the young Democrat 51.7% to 48.3%.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)

Post-Proposition 50, Issa’s Republican stronghold in Southern California becomes more narrowly divided among Democrats and Republicans and gets a larger share of Latino voters. Like Calvert and Kim, Issa may decide to run in the new Republican-majority seat in Riverside and Orange counties.

“California is my home,” Issa said Tuesday night. “And it’s worth fighting for,”

He called Proposition 50 “the worst gerrymander in history” and vowed to continue to represent “the people of California — regardless of their party or where they live.”

Issa, 72, lost a legal challenge last week over the new maps, which he sought to block.

According to the complaint filed in federal court, Issa claimed he would be harmed because he would lose “seniority advantages in committee proceedings” and have “reduced influence over legislative priorities and committee work affecting my constituents,” NBC7 in San Diego reported.

Democratic San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and perennial candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar are among those challenging Issa in his new seat.

California Democrats and Texas Republicans are in an old-fashioned standoff, threatening to redraw their congressional maps in an attempt to sway the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.

Caught in the middle are a handful of California Republicans, from relative newcomers to seasoned veterans, who represent pockets of the state from the U.S.-Mexico border to the remote forests in the northeast corner.

The Texas GOP is pushing, at the behest of President Trump, to net five additional seats for congressional Republicans, who hold the U.S. House of Representatives by a razor-thin margin. In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said California will push back with a map that would increase the number of Democrats the state sends to Washington.

“The idea that the president of the United States says he’s entitled to five seats should sicken everybody,” Newsom said at a news conference Thursday. “There’s nothing normal about that and anyone who says it’s not surprising is normalizing it. That’s shocking.”

The California gerrymandering plan taking shape behind closed doors would increase the Democratic Party’s dominance in the Golden State, adding as many as five congressional districts favorable to Democrats, according to a draft map reviewed by The Times. If the Democrats succeed, those changes could leave Republicans with four of the state’s 52 House seats — down from the current roster of nine.

California’s districts are typically drawn once per decade by an independent commission. Newsom is pushing to put a new map tailored to favor Democrats in front of voters Nov. 4, which would require the Legislature to approve the plan shortly after members return to Sacramento from their summer recess.

Newsom has said California’s redistricting plan will have a “trigger,” meaning a redrawn map would not take effect unless Texas moved forward with its own.

“We want to do it in the most transparent way,” Newsom said. “That’s a process that will unfold over the course of the next few weeks. But we want to see the maps on the ballot. I want folks to know what they’re voting on. That’s what separates what we’re doing from what others are doing.”

The proposed boundaries of the new congressional districts continue to shift, but the goal for California Democrats remains the same: Funnel the state’s Republican voters into fewer seats, boost vulnerable Democrats and turn some GOP-dominant districts into narrowly divided toss-ups.

Here are the Republicans who could face major changes.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)

Kiley represents a sprawling district that runs along the Nevada border from Northern California to Death Valley, cutting through Mammoth and Lake Tahoe and the cities of Roseville, Rocklin and Folsom.

Republicans have a 6-percentage-point voter registration advantage in Kiley’s district. The district’s footprint could shrink and shift closer to Sacramento, adding more registered Democrats and trimming off some conservative and rural areas.

Kiley introduced a bill this week to nullify any newly drawn congressional boundaries adopted by states before the next U.S. census, in 2030, which would apply to both Texas and California. He said the bill would “stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”

Newsom, Kiley said, is “trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California.”

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)

LaMalfa represents a safe Republican district that stretches through a vast territory of Northern California that borders Oregon and Nevada. The district includes Chico, Redding and Yuba City.

LaMalfa said in an interview that he had seen one map that shifted his district south to include parts of Sonoma County wine country and shifted some conservative rural areas in the north in another lawmaker’s district. Those changes, he said, would put towns near the Oregon border and Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, in the same district.

“The Democrats are really way over the line on this,” LaMalfa said. “I hope the weight of how bad this looks collapses on them before we even have to go through these gyrations, and millions and millions of dollars.”

He said he was certain that Republicans would litigate the new map if Democrats push ahead. He said other groups, including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, have also voiced concerns.

“I’m not even stressed,” said La Malfa, a fourth-generation rice farmer. “If they throw me in some wine country district or some coastal district, and that throws me out, then I can go over here and finish cutting apart this tree that fell on my fence last night.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford)

The proposed plans could add more registered Democrats to Valadao’s predominately Latino district in the Central Valley.

Democrats have tried for years to unseat Valadao, who represents a district that has a strong Democratic voter registration advantage on paper, but where turnout among blue voters is lackluster.

Even before the redistrict dustup, Valadao was once again a top target for Democrats. Valadao represents the California district with the highest percentage of Medicaid recipients, many of whom may lose coverage because of legislation approved by the Republican-led Congress and signed by Trump. Valadao previously lost his congressional seat in 2018 after voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017.

A representative for Valadao didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills)

The plan being considered could force two Republican members of the House into the same district: Kim and Calvert.

Calvert was first elected to Congress in 1992 and is the longest-serving member of California’s Republican delegation. He represents a Riverside County district that includes Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Palm Springs and his home base of Corona. The district, which leans Republican, has been a prime, but unsuccessful, target for Democrats in the last two elections.

Kim, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, represents a Republican district, mostly in Orange County, that includes Mission Viejo, Orange, Lake Forest, Anaheim and Tustin.

Calvert said he strongly opposes “the scheme being orchestrated behind closed doors by Sacramento politicians” to replace maps drawn by the redistricting commission “with a process that would allow legislators to draw district maps that are gerrymandered to benefit themselves and their political allies.”

Deviating from the independent redistricting process “disenfranchises voters and degrades trust in our political system,” Kim said in a statement. She said Newsom should, “for once, focus on addressing the pressing issues making life harder for Californians under his watch instead of trying to position himself for a presidential run.”

Newsom this week said he was pleased to see Republican members coming out in support of independent redistricting.

“That’s an encouraging sign,” Newsom said. “So already, perhaps, people are waking up to the reality of California entering into this conversation. We’re not a small state. Again, we punch above our weight. It will have profound national implications if we move forward.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)

Under the tentative plans, Issa, who has served in Congress for more than two decades, would see his safely Republican district become purple. That could include absorbing Palm Springs, a liberal area that is currently in Calvert’s district and has become a hub of fundraising and political activity for Democrats.

A spokesman for Issa declined to comment but referred to a statement from the state’s nine-member Republican delegation, which said that Trump won 38% of the presidential vote in California last year, but Republicans hold fewer than 1 in 5 of the state’s 52 House seats.

Newsom, the delegation said, is trying to wrest power from the independent redistricting commission and “place it back into the hands of Sacramento politicians to further his left-wing political agenda.”

“A partisan political gerrymander is not what the voters of California want,” the statement said.

Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.

Already a ripe target for Democrats in the next election, Central Valley Rep. David Valadao put his political future in deeper peril this week by voting in favor of legislation that slashes the Medicaid coverage essential to roughly two-thirds of his constituents.

The Republican dairy farmer from Hanford said that despite his concerns about President Trump’s megabill, he voted to support it because of concessions he helped negotiate that will help his district, such as an additional $25 billion for rural hospitals, $1 billion for Western water infrastructure and agricultural investments.

More than a half-million residents in Valadao’s district are covered by the program known in California as Medi-Cal — the most of any district in the state — according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. While preserving tax breaks benefiting the wealthy, the bill passed by a narrow Republican majorities in both the House and Senate would reduce federal Medicaid spending by $1.04 trillion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates.

Valadao said his constituents would directly benefit from several provisions in the legislation, including the extension of the tax breaks, the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime, and the expansion of the child tax credit.

“These are real wins that will put more money back in the pockets of hardworking families throughout the Valley,” he said. “No piece of legislation is perfect, but this bill ultimately reflects the priorities of [my district] — lower taxes, stronger farms, better infrastructure, and a commitment to protecting access to healthcare for Valley residents.”

Democrats vowed to use Valadao’s vote to oust him from office in the 2026 election. His district, which includes swaths of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, is among the most competitive in the nation.

Valadao has repeatedly vowed to oppose legislation that would cut healthcare for his constituents, most recently on Monday, when he posted on the social media platform X: “I’ve been clear from the start that I will not support a final reconciliation bill that makes harmful cuts to Medicaid, puts critical funding at risk, or threatens the stability of healthcare providers across” his district.

After his vote on Thursday, Valadao said that he voted for the bill because it preserves Medicaid “for its intended recipients — children, pregnant women, the disabled, and elderly.”

“David Valadao just sealed his fate by voting for a bill that will rip health care away from tens of thousands in his district, where more than two-thirds of his constituents rely on the very program he’s gutting,” said Anna Elsasser, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in a statement. “He lied to their faces, and then tried to sweep it under the rug. We all knew he’d fold when it mattered most. It’s spineless, it’s dishonest, and next November, it will cost him his seat.”

A billboard proclaiming “David Valadao Lied. He voted to gut Medi-Cal, giving CEOs a tax break. We’ll pay with our lives” was erected Thursday near the 99 Freeway in Valadao’s district by Fight for Our Health, a nonprofit coalition of health, labor, senior, disability and other groups.

Democrats also plan on targeting Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Rep. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) for their support of the bill. Hundreds of protesters descended on Kim’s Anaheim field office on Tuesday to urge the congresswoman to oppose the legislation.

Trump’s proposal narrowly passed the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance casting a tie-breaking vote because of the defection of three GOP senators who joined every Democrat in voting against it.

The legislation will dramatically overhaul the nation’s tax code by making tax cuts approved during the president’s first term permanent, a major benefit to corporations and the nation’s wealthy, while slashing funding for historic federal safety-net programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps provide food to low-income Americans.

A CBO analysis released Sunday estimated that the Senate version of the proposal would increase the national deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034 and would result in 11.8 million Americans losing health insurance in less than a decade.

The legislation created a rift among Republicans, with some opposing the amount of money it would add to the deficit while others expressing concerns about how it would impact their constituents. But ultimately, GOP members of Congress put aside their differences to get the bill on the president’s desk by Independence Day, as Trump desired.

In a marathon session that ended early Thursday morning, members of the House of Representatives voted 220-212 largely along party lines to approve a procedural rule that allows the legislation to be considered by the full body Thursday, a victory for Trump and GOP legislative leaders.

Valadao’s vote in support of the procedural vote before midnight Wednesday raised eyebrows, given the number of his constituents who rely on Medicaid, his previous willingness to oppose Trump and GOP concerns about holding onto control of his seat.

More than 40% of the district’s voters are Democrats, while 28.3% are Republicans and 23.3% registered as having no party preference, according to the nonpartisan California Target Book, which handicaps congressional races.

Valadao, 48, served one term in the state Assembly prior to being elected to Congress in 2012. He was reelected twice before narrowly losing reelection in 2018. He retook the seat in 2020.

He drew the ire of fellow Republicans as one of 10 GOP members of congress who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 after a violent mob of the president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in the aftermath of the president’s loss in the 2020 presidential election. However, Valadao did not face the same retribution from Trump that the others did, reportedly because of the congressman’s long-standing relationship with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday told reporters that Valadao should leave office if he votes for the bill.

“It’s the ultimate betrayal,” he said during a news conference in Burbank. “This is one of the most calamitous and devastating bills of our lifetime.”

Newsom predicted that if the bill passes, hospitals will close, Californians will lose access to healthcare and food stamps, and student loans will increase.

Valadao “might as well resign early and I can call a special election, if he supports it,” Newsom said. “What basis do you have of trust in your own district if you would betray your own constituency to such an extraordinary, extraordinary degree. It’s one of the poorest districts in the country.”