Californians can be forgiven for experiencing a sense of déjà vu as Election Day approaches and, with it, the prospect of a Democratic “wave” sweeping across an already deep-blue Golden State.
In 2018, California was witness to a lopsided governor’s race (Gavin Newsom winning by nearly 24 points)—2026 perhaps offering a repeat of a lopsided contest, unless one believes Republican Steve Hilton’s internal polling showing that Hilton has a puncher’s chance to beat Xavier Becerra.
And at the congressional level, eight years ago: seven of California’s fourteen seats held by Republicans going into that election fell into Democratic hands once the votes were counted. Not that the Golden State offered much in the way of competition: in congressional races pitting a Democrat against a Republican, the average Democratic gain was 9 points over the same party matchups in 2014.
Back in 2018, one could argue that California was riding atop a broader resentment toward Donald Trump’s first presidency, with Democrats gaining a net total of forty seats nationwide—seventeen more than needed to win control of the chamber.
And in 2026?
We’ll see soon enough to what extent a second wave of anti-Trump sentiment sends congressional Republican packing (here’s one estimate predicting a more modest Democratic gain of nine to nineteen seats). But to the extent that California plays a role in the sea change, it won’t be so much riding a wave as determining whether any Republicans can escape the riptide.
Which takes back to some hardball California politics of a year ago and the implementation of Proposition 50, which redrew California’s congressional map to one party’s decided advantage.
A little background: in August of last year, after a Texas special legislation session re-drew the Lone Star State’s congressional map in favor of the GOP, California’s Legislature did the same but in reverse, producing a new Democrat-favoring map that would apply to the current and next two congressional elections.
But as redistricting falls under the province of California’s state constitution (in the form of an independent commission created by 2010’s Proposition 20), lawmakers had to take the partisan gerrymander to the voters in the form of Proposition 50, which sailed to victory in a November special election.
Not that the interim between that November election and California’s June primary was without drama.
A week after Proposition 50’s vote certification, opponents of the gerrymander went to court to block its implementation—the argument being that the new map was unconstitutional in that it relied too heavily on race when redrawing sixteen districts that favored Latino voters.
What happened to the legal challenge? In January, a three-judge federal panel turned down the request. That took the matter to the US Supreme Court, which likewise passed on overturning Proposition 50 four days into February—some five days before congressional candidates could begin filing their paperwork for the June primary. Not missing a chance to gloat: California Governor Gavin Newsom, who trolled the president with this early Valentine: “Donald Trump said he was ‘entitled’ to five more congressional seats in Texas. He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he’ll lose again in November.”
The question now, as Election Day nears: to what extent does the governor’s prophecy come true?
If Proposition 50 goes according to form, five seats won by a Republican candidate in 2024 will go Democratic this fall. The net result: come 2029, California’s fifty-two-seat congressional delegation will consist of forty-eight Democrats and four Republicans—Democrats controlling 92 percent of the congressional delegation while accounting for 45 percent of registered voters. Indeed, if Democrats fall short of a pickup of five House seats, the question will arise as to what went wrong with the design.
Per Inside Elections’ Baseline, forty-six of California’s fifty-two congressional districts have a Democratic advantage of 5 or more points in terms of voter registration, while only five GOP-held districts have the same cushion (prior to the gerrymander, thirty-seven Democratic and eight GOP districts had such a buffer).
Translation: the campaign begins with Democrats all but guaranteed forty-six seats and Republicans but four, with only two districts maybe up for grabs.
So how does a targeted politician avoid the wave, escape the undertow, or whatever watery political metaphor you prefer?
For Representative Kevin Kiley, currently on the ballot in California’s Sixth Congressional District as an independent, the idea seems to be adapt or die: Kiley first deciding to take the high road by running in a redrawn district that includes his hometown rather than a more friendly nearby district.
Add to that a dash of the Machiavellian plotting: Kiley then re-registered from Republican to independent to better his odds in the bluer district.
Will Kiley’s ploy work? It’s worth noting that he struggles with two Democrats, one being his opponent, Democrat Richard Pan, who’s debate-averse. Which is a shame: Pan, a pediatrician and former state senator, is notable (or notorious, depending on one’s faith in science and bureaucracy) for authoring California’s school vaccine laws. That’s the opposite of Kiley, who ran in 2021’s gubernatorial recall election on an anti-Newsom message tailored to parental frustration over COVID-19 closures.
If Kiley can’t get a debate date with Pan, he seemingly can’t escape Governor Newsom. Newsom’s oft-juvenile press operation recently called the congressman “a weak little noodle” for allegedly refusing to join in the reaction to a recent Trump comment involving Iran and California. To the question of where Newsom will barnstorm prior to election, his California itinerary may very well include California’s Sixth Congressional seat.
Not to mention California’s Twenty-second Congressional District, which spans the Central Valley from Fresno to Bakersfield and likewise became bluer after the gerrymander. Which, in theory, this should lead to the demise of Representative David Valadao, one of the seven California House Republicans ousted in 2018 (Valadao won his job back two years later and rolled to a 7-point win in 2024.
How the Twenty-second CD was reconfigured: some Democratic-friendly areas of Fresno County were added while some GOP-friendlier parts were subtracted. And for Valadao a problem: in 2024, he carried less than 41 percent of voters in the redrawn district.
So how does Valadao manage to pull out what would be his seventh win in the last eight congressional cycles? The answer: zigzagging. Valadao defends the choice of going to war with Iran; he also blames the war for higher fuel prices (soaring diesel prices are a concern for California’s agricultural communities). Valadao supports the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration approach and ICE raids; and lest an independent voter think the congressman is pro-vigilante, Valadao was the lone House Republican to vote to impeach Trump over the January 6, 2021, riots at the US Capitol.
Which may factor into why, while House Speaker Mike Johnson recently came to Bakersfield to stump for Valadao, President Trump so far hasn’t visited a corner of California. Then again, in a district that’s majority Latino, a Republican president who’s shedding Latino support over affordability might not be the ideal surrogate.
The funny thing about Bakersfield: a community jokingly considered more “West Texas” than “West Coast” for its conservative predilections turns out to be a crossroads for California and the nation in 2026.
On the first of day of October, the House speaker stopped by to plead his case for another two years of a Republican-run House. Four days later, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brought his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to town and campaigned alongside Valadao’s Democratic opponent—a spirited rally featuring cries of Medicare-for-all mixed with healthy doses of wealth-bashing, AI fearmongering, and the promise of pathways to citizenship.
And, all the while, David Valadao struggling to survive.
Talk about an odd election: a town dubbed the “armpit” of the Golden State doubles as a political nerve center.
