Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley won’t say where he’s running, but gave a big hint | Opinion
Rocklin Republican Kevin Kiley will run for reelection somewhere within the 3rd Congressional District, which Kiley has represented since 2023. For now, it’s California’s largest district in geographic size, but that will soon change because state voters approved Proposition 50 in November, allowing congressional districts to be redrawn to favor Democrats. That made Kiley politically homeless.
“It just so happens that (his district) has been cut in six different pieces,” he said.
In a Tuesday night town hall with Sacramento Bee subscribers at the historic train station in Loomis, with freight trains occasionally rattling by, Kiley would not say which of these six redrawn districts he will run in. But with the March 6 candidacy deadline looming, Kiley doesn’t have much time to plan his political future. “I haven’t decided myself,” he said.
Maybe so. But in listening to his insightful exchange with Bee editors and subscribers, Kiley may have shown his hand. And if so, Republican incumbent Tom McClintock in the newly drawn California 5th Congressional District should be very, very nervous.
“I want to run where I can be most effective and deliver for that community as well,” Kiley said. “I think in the post-Prop. 50, it is going to be more important than ever to be effective.”
How Prop. 50 went after Kiley
The existing 3rd District stretches from Placer County to the west and then across the Sierra, with Death Valley to the south and Sierra County to the north, a lot of rural Republican territory. Prop. 50 confined the district to the western side of the Sierra, replacing all those rural voters with a strange finger of land stretching from Kiley’s base in Placer County to Democrat-leaning neighborhoods in Sacramento County.
Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, currently representing the 6th District, is running in the new 3rd District. In the new 6th District that leans blue (based largely in north Sacramento and western Placer counties), Democrats are running such as Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, former state Sen. Richard Pan and West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero.
The problem for Republican candidates like Kiley in these new Democrat-leaning districts is that polls show support for President Donald Trump has eroded to a hard-core base, and a solid majority want change.
On Tuesday night, Kiley was repeatedly careful in his words about Trump. When asked about the president’s pardons such as Honduras’ former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted of drug trafficking, Kiley said: “Generally speaking, you can probably raise objections to any pardon any president has ever done.”
That kind of answer is not going to fly with Democrats and independents. For a Republican like Kiley to survive in the post-Prop. 50 world, he has to win three elections before, absent another state initiative, California stops its gerrymandering ways in 2032 and goes back to fair, independently-drawn districts.
There currently is no room in the Republican Party for members of Congress to challenge the president. But there is room to question Congress, particularly Speaker Mike Johnson. That’s where Kiley’s interest in being “effective” leads to McClintock and the 5th Congressional District.
A perfect Kiley scenario is emerging
The heart of the new 5th District is on the central Sierra’s west side, with Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa counties. There, the perfect scenario for Kiley is for a bunch of Democrats, none with massive traction, to run in the June primary and cancel each other out, leaving Kiley and McClintock as the finalists in November. So far, that appears to be a real possibility.
Kiley’s residency in Placer County would be of no issue against McClintock, one of California’s most celebrated political carpetbaggers.
In recent months, Kiley has emerged with his own voice in Congress. As California Democrats moved to place Prop. 50 on the ballot, he urged an end to gerrymandering nationwide between census counts. Johnson “didn’t even give it a vote,” Kiley said Tuesday night.
Kiley has supported temporarily extending the federal subsidies for millions of Americans getting coverage through the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. The lack of action in Congress, he said, was “inexcusable.”
In the 5th District, Kiley is perfectly situated to peel off moderate Republicans and independents and even some Democrats in November who would hold their nose if McClintock, with 17 unremarkable years in Congress, is the alternative. McClintock would be forced to run on his record, or the lack thereof. Kiley by far is the more compelling candidate of those two.
“I’m just trying to be as responsive to the folks I represent as possible, and see where I could have the biggest impact,” Kiley said Tuesday.
One member of Congress going after a fellow member’s seat is never pretty. But there is only one way for any politician to stay effective. And that’s to win. Kiley’s refusal to take on Trump shrinks the playing field to one logical choice.