An infamous California Republican is taking a high-profile risk this fall. 

After deliberating for months, Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley announced that he will be running for reelection in California’s 6th Congressional District, which encompasses part of Sacramento and its northeastern suburbs. 

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., questions Attorney General Pam Bondi during the House Judiciary Committee hearing “Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice,” in Rayburn building on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.

Kiley’s current district, California’s 3rd Congressional District, spanned the entire Sierra from Lassen National Volcanic Park to Death Valley but was virtually erased under the new Proposition 50 map. When Prop. 50’s changes go into effect for the next congressional term, his former District 3 will be split into six pieces.

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With his constituents divided among several districts, the redrawing forced Kiley to decide where he would run for re-election or risk being out of a job.

Kiley will be up against a slate of Democrats who have already announced their run in the new District 6, including Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero and former California state Sen. Richard Pan. Other GOP candidates are Christine Bish, Raymond Riehle and Craig Deluz, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., listens during a discussion on “Battling Bidenomics” with members of the press at the Greenbrier Hotel on March 14, 2024, in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

Before making his decision public Monday, Kiley was also contemplating a run in District 5 against the incumbent there: fellow Republican Rep. Tom McClintock. That would have set up a likely ugly duel between the two Republicans.

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“The new 6th District is Democratic-leaning but open-minded,” Kiley said in a written statement on Monday morning announcing his choice. “While this will be a more challenging race, I believe we can build a winning coalition for common sense.”

Kiley, a two-term congressman, has been a lightning rod over the last year. He upset some constituents when he cast a vote in support of massive cuts to Medicaid funding in President Donald Trump’s budget bill last year, and he has pushed to gut the California Coastal Commission, an agency that protects 1,100 miles of ocean coastline. He successfully reversed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gas car ban, one of Newsom’s signature climate achievements. He kept showing up to work in Washington, D.C., during the government shutdown last fall, against the wishes of national Republican leadership, particularly Trump-aligned House Speaker Mike Johnson. He has also worked across the aisle, such as when Affordable Care Act tax credits were set to expire at the end of 2025; he proposed alternative legislation to keep those subsidies around, though the legislation ultimately failed.

Kiley lives in Rocklin, which is within the new District 6. According to census data, 33% of his constituents will remain there, which gives Kiley a bigger portion of support to start with than District 5 would have; only about 4.4% of Kiley’s current constituents live in the new District 5, according to Paul Mitchell, the California-based demographer who finalized the Prop. 50 maps. 

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However, District 6 was redrawn to lean heavily Democratic under Prop. 50, which will make a run for a Republican a lot more challenging. It set up a tough decision for Kiley: either run against McClintock, where he would be forced to find a way to distinguish himself and appeal to a conservative district that has been loyal to McClintock and reelected him for years, or pick the uphill battle among Democratic-leaning voters in District 6.

Jon Fleischman, a political strategist and former executive director of the California Republican Party from 1999 to 2001, told SFGATE in a phone call before Kiley announced his decision that he didn’t “think it’s good for the party to have a Republican on Republican fight.” 

In his short political career — Kiley was first elected to Congress in 2023 — Kiley has built a reputation as a major opponent to Gov. Gavin Newsom, including when he ran a failed recall campaign against him in 2021 (and wrote a book about it). But whether he will tone that down, and opt for moderate policies, will be worth looking out for as he begins his quest to win over suburban voters.

In an emailed statement, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Christian Martinez praised Kiley. “Congressman Kevin Kiley is working to make California more affordable, more secure, and full of opportunity for every family. His leadership shows that with focus and determination, California’s best days are yet to come,” he wrote.

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Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024.

McClintock already had key endorsements under his belt, which may have factored into Kiley’s decision. The longtime congressman had an endorsement last month from Club for Growth, an influential conservative PAC, as well as from President Donald Trump, who wrote earlier this year on Truth Social: “Tom McClintock has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” 

Last November, Kiley told KCRA-TV that he was always planning to run for Congress “in spite of” the changed map, which chopped his previously 450-mile-long district into six pieces.

“In that sense, I have a lot of options,” Kiley said, but he insisted he hadn’t “really given much thought to which way I’m going to go” because he’d been focused on campaigning against Prop. 50. He called the decision of where to run “agonizing” because there was no way he could return to represent all of his current constituents.

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Kiley will continue to represent District 3 until January 2027, when the new map defined by Prop. 50 will be implemented.

In a text to SFGATE after Kiley’s announcement, Fleischman said he is relishing that Kiley’s race won’t be a divisive one between “two friends.”

“That sound you hear is a collective sigh of relief from a lot of Republicans, with the loudest sigh coming from longtime veteran conservative Congressman Tom McClintock,” he wrote. 

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