A Republican victory in Northern California won’t be the same fight this fall

James Gallagher, the Republican state assemblymember from Yuba City, won Tuesday’s special election for California’s District 1, a conservative stronghold, with a majority vote and will soon join Congress, filling the seat left vacant when Rep. Doug LaMalfa died earlier this year. Gallagher will serve the remainder of LaMalfa’s term — but he won’t have much time to settle in before he has to defend his seat this fall. 

Read more Calif. Democrat calls Tuesday’s primary results ‘generational change’

Tuesday’s victory means Gallagher will be the incumbent in November’s election for the U.S. House of Representatives in California’s District 1. He will be running against Mike McGuire, the Democrat from Healdsburg in Sonoma County. 

“Unite the north. And that’s been our slogan this whole time,” Gallagher said at an election party on Tuesday night, in a video posted to his Instagram stories. “… Just to bring everybody together, all the communities seen from Marysville and Yuba City all the way to Tule Lake … all these small towns, Orland to Oroville, right. We wanted to make sure we brought everybody together in this fight.”

November’s election, however, will be an entirely different challenge for Republicans, thanks to a redistricting effort across California that gives Democrats an advantage. The special election to fill the vacant seat in Congress was held in the old District 1, which encompassed the far northeastern corner of the state and had given Republicans a solid and comfortable majority during LaMalfa’s 13-year run in Congress. In 2024, LaMalfa defeated the Democratic candidate with around 65% of the vote. 

But this fall, California’s newly drawn boundaries will be in place: District 1 now cuts a jagged swath across Northern California, from Lassen, Plumas and Sierra counties on the eastern edge of the state all the way to Wine Country and parts of Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties. Democrats have a 12-point lead in the new District 1, based on 2024 election results. 

The two elections — one for the primary and one for the special election, both held on Tuesday — and the mixed-up boundary lines between the old and new versions of District 1 made this race especially confusing. Despite the Democrat’s redistricting advantage, Gallagher still took the lead in the primary election, but he had a narrower margin than the one in the special election. As of Tuesday morning, Gallagher had a roughly 10-point lead over McGuire in the primary. But in the special election to fill the vacant congressional seat — which included the conservative Modoc County but not the liberal-leaning Wine Country — Gallagher took 62.6% of the vote compared with McGuire’s 17.6%. 

Read more Nail-biter in redrawn California district as Democrats could be shut out

“Tonight’s numbers speak for themselves,” McGuire said in a statement released Tuesday night, adding: “Come this November, we will flip this seat and give the people what they deserve — a fighter who never folds, a leader who will deliver for rural California, and a representative who will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Tuesday’s results pit a Bay Area Democrat against a Sacramento Valley-based Republican in this fall’s fight to represent some of California’s most rural, remote residents. McGuire pushed out the Democratic candidate from the original District 1. Audrey Denney, a Democrat from Chico, had 13.4% of the vote in Tuesday’s primary, not enough for a spot in the general election. 

Tuesday’s results “sent a message that, you know, we’re not gonna be broken up,” Gallagher said in an interview posted to his Instagram stories, adding: “The north state sticks together. We stand strong. We united tonight, and we sent a big message across the nation.”