North Bay voters already know that Mike McGuire, the former political prodigy from Healdsburg who became president of the California State Senate, is running for Congress.
Turns out he’s running a few months earlier than expected.
McGuire, who terms out of state office in December, announced last fall that he will run to represent the newly drawn 1st Congressional District – transformed by the statewide referendum Proposition 50 from a safe Republican seat into one that leans Democratic.
In an unexpected announcement Friday evening, Feb. 20, McGuire said he’s hurling himself into another, earlier fray — the Aug. 4 special election to decide who serves out the remainder of the term left by former District 1 Rep. Doug LaMalfa, the Butte County Republican who died suddenly on Jan. 6, after holding that seat since 2013.
Prop. 50, designed to carve out five new Democratic congressional seats, was Gov. Gavin Newsom’s bare-knuckled response to a gerrymander executed earlier at the behest of President Donald Trump by the Texas Legislature.
That plan was complicated by the death of LaMalfa, which necessitated the special election.
Conventional wisdom had been that McGuire, who will be favored in the Nov. 3 election for the full, two-year term, would take a pass on the special election, which will be contested on LaMalfa’s former turf, within the current, bright red, pre-Prop. 50 lines – not the Democrat-friendly, new ones.
Asked what the upside is for him to enter a race where he’ll be an underdog to James Gallagher, the California Assembly member from Yuba City who has been described as LaMalfa’s protegee and who earlier this month reeled in an endorsement from President Trump, McGuire replied:
“Look, rural communities throughout the North State have incredible needs. Everyone deserves good schools. Every community deserves great and accessible hospitals, every individual deserves a representative fighting for them, not for Donald Trump and his millionaire buddies.”
McGuire can’t help but be encouraged by the national trend of Democrats significantly overperforming in traditionally Republican-leaning districts.
His campaign is already well underway.
“We’ve held 28 town halls over the last three months,” he said, “in Oroville, in Chico, in Susanville, the list goes on.
“Everywhere I go I hear the same thing: Folks are tired of Republican leadership, they’re tired of the false promises, they’re tired of their health care being taken away, and they’re ready to flip this seat.”
In addition to facing Gallagher, McGuire will be running against fellow Democrat Audrey Denney, a Chico-based educator and nonprofit strategist who ran twice against LaMalfa, in 2018 and 2020, losing both times.
McGuire says he’s undaunted by the current district’s persistent Republican tilt.
“This is not about party registration,” he said. “It’s about the fact that prices are going up, hospitals are closing.
“People want change,” he said. “They want a representative who’s going to restore their health care, make life more affordable, build more houses and make sure their kids have good schools to attend.
“That’s why we’re running, and that’s why we’re going to every community in every county and earning every vote.”
You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com.
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