By Austin Murphy
Well, that escalated quickly.
A week after Gov. Gavin Newsom urged Americans to “wake up” and announced his hope of redrawing California’s congressional map, the California Legislature delivered him bills that clear the way for a Nov. 4 special election that could do just that.
The governor’s quest to carve out five new safe Democratic seats — a counterpunch to the gerrymandered political map approved by the Texas Legislature — could also benefit Newsom personally, elevating his profile as he continues to emerge as a 2028 presidential contender.
But Newsom isn’t the only California Democrat whose career could get a boost if that measure, Prop. 50, passes in November.
Riding herd on the California State Senate this week, ensuring the orderly passage of that redistricting-related legislation in an excruciatingly tight time frame, was its president, Mike McGuire, the Healdsburg Democrat who terms out of office at the end of 2026.
As it happens, the reconfigured map released Aug. 15 features a redrawn, Democrat-friendly 1st District that takes in Santa Rosa, at its southern tip, then extends up the Highway 101 corridor — through Healdsburg, where two decades ago McGuire became the youngest mayor in that city’s history. The vast district expands north through Lake County, then east to Chico and the Nevada border beyond.
Were McGuire to consider Congress as his next challenge, the 46-year-old could hardly ask for a more ideal district in which to run.
“He would be phenomenal,” said Bill Dodd, the former state senator from Napa, and a longtime McGuire friend and confidant who helped whip the votes to get McGuire elected as Senate president in 2023.
The core of votes in the proposed redrawn 1st District reside in Sonoma County (population, 485,375), where McGuire is widely known and well-regarded, Dodd said, “because he’s served that community, in so many capacities, at such a high level.” Dodd cited as a recent example the senator’s key role in steering a $45 million rescue package to his chronically cash-crunched alma mater, Sonoma State University. That windfall has since been doubled to $90 million.
“So often in politics,” Dodd noted, “you can’t pick your time. Your time picks you. This is something that, if it happens, I couldn’t imagine a better candidate than Mike McGuire. In my opinion he would win going away.”
But will he run?
In a statement to The Press Democrat, McGuire said, “Folks have been asking me for years what my next steps are, and I tell everyone the same thing, every time: It’s the honor of a lifetime to work in the Senate, I’m laser-focused on my duties now and will keep people updated on any changes.”
He declined to elaborate, and his aides declined to make him available for an interview.
Also not available, according to the website GoDaddy.com, is the domain name “MikeMcGuireforCongress,” which was registered by an unknown party on Aug. 7, according to the site.
Still, “It’s not a done deal,” said David McCuan, the Sonoma State political science professor with deep Sacramento connections.
Should the senator take that leap, “there will be no other candidate that outworks him,” McCuan said. “He will run for that seat seven days a week, 20 hours a day. He’s not called the Energizer bunny for nothing.”
As presently constituted, the 1st District is far more conservative leaning, and represented by Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, who recently told The Press Democrat he wasn’t going to get “too wound up about this” until Prop. 50 passes, if it passes.
LaMalfa also noted that some of the state legislators “who have a hand” in the redistricting push also stand to benefit from it, should the new maps come to fruition — a clear reference to McGuire.
In a widely read Facebook post questioning the long-term wisdom of California’s proposed gerrymanders — which she ultimately supported — Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said she detected “a dash of cronyism” in the redrawn maps.
Asked if she was referring to McGuire in that passage, Hopkins replied, “People will draw their own conclusions.”
Amy Thoma Tan, a spokesperson for the anti-Prop. 50 campaign “Protect Voters First,” said the proposed new districts were drawn “by politicians and party insiders behind closed doors with no transparency and no input from the public.”
Her group is funded by Charles Munger Jr., a passionate, deep-pocketed advocate for the Citizens Redistricting Committee, which was founded in 2008, and took the power to draw district lines away from state legislators in a bid to make the process more nonpartisan.
“Several elected politicians with open congressional committees will vote on these self-serving districts,” Tan said. “That is a clear conflict of interest and undermines public trust in the fairness of our elections.”
Paul Mitchell, founder of Redistricting Partners, the Sacramento-based demography firm hired by the California Legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map, pushed back against the idea that any of the five newly configured, safely Democratic districts, was designed for any one person.
“We drew the maps to push back on Texas, to create five new opportunities in what are currently Republican districts,” Mitchell said.
“There is only one way to draw Northern California to create three Democratic districts” — it now has two. “And that is to keep Marin County whole in one district, Santa Rosa whole in the other, and Napa whole in the third.
“The decision to create a new seat in Northern California was made the moment we decided we wanted to pick up five seats. It had nothing to do with any candidate,” Mitchell said.
