State Senate President Mike McGuire Enters Special Election for LaMalfa Seat

Senate president pro tem Mike McGuire announced Friday evening, Feb. 20, that he will enter the Aug. 4 special election to fill the remainder of the late U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s 1st Congressional District term, a surprise move into a seat whose current boundaries include Humboldt County. Governor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation setting the Aug. 4 special election on Jan. 16.

The Aug. 4 special will require a June 2 primary under state election timing, and Sacramento’s Bee reporting noted a candidate could win the vacancy outright by taking more than 50 percent in that primary, a mechanics point emphasized in coverage compiled by Roll Call. The special contest will use the district’s current, pre-Prop. 50 lines - a map that sources describe as stretching from Sacramento’s northern outskirts through Redding to the Oregon border and Alturas, and as largely rural and strongly Republican.

Prop. 50 redraws the 1st District for the regular November contest, adding Plumas County along with Lassen, Sierra, Butte, Tehama, Glenn and parts of Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties, a configuration Press Democrat and other outlets say now leans Democratic. Press Democrat framed the change as part of a strategic effort tied to Gov. Newsom; the outlet wrote, "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."

McGuire had announced last fall he would run for the newly drawn 1st District in the Nov. 3 regular election, but his Feb. 20 entry into the special surprised many observers. Press Democrat noted, "Turns out he’s running a few months earlier than expected." PlumasSun traced McGuire’s rise from a local school board to Healdsburg City Council, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and election to the state Assembly in 2014, and said he now serves as Senate president pro tem and "terms out of state office in December." In a PlumasSun Q&A, McGuire described the emerging field this way: "There are a couple of Democrats, and there’s going to be a Republican."

Republican State Assemblyman James Gallagher has already declared for the special election, according to PlumasSun and Roll Call, and California Republican lawmakers issued a statement saying, "There is no one more qualified to fill that role than James Gallagher, who will without a doubt continue Doug’s legacy as an unrelenting advocate for rural California." Gallagher told the Los Angeles Times he had not decided whether to run for the full two-year term in the new district, saying, "but I would say I’m considering it." Democrat Audrey Denney has said she will run in the special and also in the regular November contest; Denney twice challenged LaMalfa in 2018 and 2020.

LaMalfa’s death has immediate national implications: Roll Call noted the vacancy, combined with an earlier resignation, narrowed the Republican majority in the U.S. House to 218-213. Roll Call also relayed that a candidate who wins outright in the June primary could be seated sooner, altering the balance more quickly.

Details remain unsettled in public reporting; outlets differ on LaMalfa’s date of death, with one report saying he died during emergency surgery on Jan. 5 and others saying he died suddenly on Jan. 6. A funeral service was scheduled at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico, with LaMalfa’s staff saying attendees would include Speaker Mike Johnson, members of Congress and Governor Gavin Newsom.

McGuire’s entry collapses two different strategic calculations into a compressed calendar: the Aug. 4 special on the old, bright-red map and the Nov. 3 regular election on the Prop. 50 lines that now favor Democrats, with a June 2 primary that could produce an outright winner for the unfinished term.