North Bay lawmaker joins congressional race to represent newly drawn district
State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Santa Rosa, has announced his intention to run for Congress to represent the newly redrawn 1st Congressional District, which now includes the North Bay town where McGuire got his political start.
The announcement, which comes a little over a week after voters resoundingly approved Proposition 50, was widely expected as McGuire, 46, terms out of the state Legislature in 2026, after serving as the leader of the Senate.
“Flipping CA-01, bringing costs down, and stopping Donald Trump. That’s going to take hard work,” McGuire wrote in a post on X announcing the launch of his campaign. “I’m all in. Every damn day.”
The 1st District seat has been held by Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa since 2012. With the passage of Prop. 50, the district LaMalfa represented has been cut in two, with the top half joining up with the new 2nd Congressional District, currently represented by Jared Huffman.
Democrat Audrey Denney, a 41-year-old educator, consultant and previous challenger of LaMalfa’s, announced she would run in August for the first Congressional seat, officially launching her campaign last month.
McGuire got his start in politics at 19 when he was elected onto the Healdsburg School Board. From there, he served on the City Council, including as mayor of the small Sonoma County wine town, and onto the county’s Board of Supervisors.
The redrawn 1st District will now stretch from the Nevada border through Chico to the North Bay, including much of Santa Rosa.
In his campaign video, McGuire stressed his generational roots in Northern California.
“This district is big, it’s rural, and now more than ever, it needs a fighter,” he said. “I know these roads. I know these towns. And I know what it takes to deliver for you and your family.”
Sonoma State political science Professor David McCuan said the district was drawn in the only way that would work for Democrats’ purposes, but also appears “tailor-made” for the outgoing pro tem, a situation that he said drew ire in the Legislature.
“There’s a lot of people in the chamber who were not happy with how this all went down, and how this district appears to have been drawn for him,” McCuan said.
For several years, McGuire has been amassing funds into a campaign account for a state Insurance Commissioner run in 2026. McCuan said that position never seemed likely for the ambitious young lawmaker.
“He needs to get to a level where he can take his talents and his energy and move to someplace else that provides him multiple pathways,” McCuan said.
McGuire’s campaign news release touted support from some Democratic bigwigs, including Sen. Adam Schiff, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Reps. Mike Thompson, Huffman, and “every Democratic county supervisor in the district.”
This story was originally published November 13, 2025 at 8:25 AM.