SFGate article on Congressi
Karen Kleven is used to being outvoted. For 50 years, the Democrat has lived in Quincy, a small town in the northern reaches of the Sierra Nevada and the seat of California’s Plumas County, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by almost two to one. After President Donald Trump was elected for the second time last fall, she met with a small group of like-minded residents to start a local chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots movement made up of people across the country who are resisting the Trump administration. At first, “it was a way to not feel hopeless,” Kleven said, “and channel your anger into more progressive actions.”
In June, several hundred people showed up to a No Kings protest in Quincy, joining more than an estimated 1,000 who protested in Truckee and several thousand in Grass Valley, a small city in the Sierra foothills between Tahoe and Sacramento. Farther south, in the Eastern Sierra, about 800 people protested in Bishop; in the small ski town of Mammoth Lakes, organizers reported 600 people.
Longtime residents and Democrats say they haven’t ever experienced a groundswell of energy in the historically red region like the one underway now. But it makes sense. Rural residents feel the impacts of the Trump administration’s cuts in unique ways. They’re surrounded by public land that Congress has made repeated attempts to sell off, and they rely on outdoor recreation to sustain their economies. Immigration fills many service-based jobs in resort towns in Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes. Rural hospitals need federal funding to stay open.
That’s one reason why Democrats at the state and national level are eyeing the Sierra Nevada for the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. In particular, California’s 3rd Congressional District, a newly redrawn district that unites a large swath of the Sierra Nevada, is one of the few Republican-leaning districts in California that could flip blue. If it does, it could have huge implications for a Democratic Party that only needs to regain three seats to flip the House in 2026.
Currently, the 3rd District is represented in Washington by the Rocklin-based Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley. Elected to Congress in 2022 at 37 years old, Kiley came from the state Legislature, where he ruffled feathers as an outspoken MAGA Republican in a Democrat-dominated building. Trump endorsed him at the time, calling him a “fantastic person” after his victory and crediting him for helping flip the House, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Yet nearly six months into Trump’s second term, his administration has unleashed wave after wave of cuts and changes that are proving hard for rural Republicans like Kiley to defend. It has Democrats ready to pounce.
“People are not only angry at what’s been happening, but really feel like they want to do something,” said Joyce Kaufman, chair of the Mono County Democratic Committee and a resident of June Lake, a tiny town tucked into the mountains between Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes. “There’s a lot of anger, but also a lot of energy.”
Bluer than you’d think
Before the 2020 census, District 3 was located in the Sacramento Valley and was considered a safe Democratic district. At the same time, the Sierra Nevada was divided into three districts, all represented by Republicans: Reps. Tom McClintock, Jay Obernolte and Doug LaMalfa.
The results from the 2020 census led to a redistricting in California, in which an independent commission drew new district lines and delivered them in December 2021. The new lines pulled counties from the northern and southern Sierra Nevada into District 3 and include some of the state’s most dramatic natural landmarks, like Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous 48 states.
The redistricting turned District 3 more rural and more conservative, though by uniting a handful of rural blue counties — Nevada, Alpine and Mono — it also gave Democrats a fighting chance.
Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election analyzer, predicts the district will continue to lean Republican in next year’s midterm election. But the region is now full of Democratic and swing voters who are frustrated with the Trump administration. Another nonpartisan group, 270 to Win, identified the district as leaning Republican for the 2026 election, while Democratic think tank EMILY’s List has identified the district as one of four competitive races to watch in California.
Three of the 10 counties in Kiley’s district voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election last fall. In April, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders held a rally in Sacramento County. Some 30,000 people showed up; the line to get inside the rally in Kiley’s district was 3 miles long. In adjacent Placer County, which makes up over half of District 3’s population, new residents are turning some of the reddest parts of California purple.
Among the district’s registered voters, nearly 33% are registered Democrats, while Republicans make up about 39%, according to February registration data. Election groups like EMILY’s List argue that there are still tens of thousands of voters who are not registered to any party, and those are the ones they are betting on.
Todd Stennhouse, a Democratic consultant who has worked on campaigns in the district for two decades, said it’s “too early to tell” what will happen next year, but he expects Kiley’s district “will be very competitive” in 2026.
“A lot can happen between now and the next election,” Stennhouse said. “… It’s not like you flip a switch. It takes time. And energy and enthusiasm. There is certainly that on the ground.”
‘A job interview every two years’
For now, Kiley seems totally unfazed by the prospect of a competitive race.
“Every district is up for election every two years. That’s what we do. That’s the way our system works, and voters have an opportunity to weigh in every two years,” Kiley said in a recent phone interview with SFGATE. “And so every single one of the districts across the country is competitive in the sense that no one has a right to continue serving. … You essentially have a job interview every two years.”
Historically, Kiley doesn’t seem to shy from a fight. In addition to his proud MAGA status while in Sacramento, the former English teacher turned lawyer ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor during the recall effort against Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021. That year, he authored a book titled “Recall Newsom: The Case Against America’s Most Corrupt Governor.”
He’s taken high-profile stances in recent months, too, as the Republican budget bill wound its way through Congress. He and eight other California Republican representatives were in the hot seat after the first round of House votes on the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” where they voted in favor of provisions like one that would slash $800 billion in Medicaid funding and the early version of a proposal to sell off public lands across the West. Just days earlier, Kiley had spoken on the House floor declaring his opposition to the sale of public lands.
His most recent vote on behalf of his nearly 800,000 constituents was in favor of the final, Senate-revised version of Trump’s budget bill. That version, which Trump signed into law July 4, includes drastic cuts to Medicaid benefits that can put 12 million people at risk of losing health care; 57% of adult Medi-Cal enrollees in Kiley’s district are at risk of losing coverage, according to the California Budget and Policy Center, which equates to 107,000 of his constituents. It will also increase how much Americans will pay for energy while financing tax cuts for the wealthy and pour in billions to fund immigration enforcement. The provision pushing for the sale of public lands was ultimately removed after overwhelming backlash — though public lands remain vulnerable under the Trump administration.
“Californians will soon get something long overdue: major tax relief,” Kiley said in a news release after the bill signing. “… The bill also provides crucial support for education, national defense, and border security. And it protects our public lands and rural hospitals — both of which I advocated for throughout the legislative process.”
While Kiley’s support for public land preservation could be seen as an indicator that he is aligned with constituents’ environmental values, some have pointed to his efforts to dismantle the California Coastal Commission and reverse the state’s historic gas-powered car ban as contradictory.
“We don’t consider him an environmentalist or a conservationist,” said Nick Bennett, the chair of Placer County Democrats.
All of that is why Democratic Nevada County Supervisor Heidi Hall sees an opportunity in District 3. She launched her congressional bid against Kiley in April.
“I’m going to do everything I can to flip this district,” Hall said in a recent phone call with SFGATE. “It is flippable.”
Hall has served as a Nevada County supervisor since 2017, after years working at agencies like the San Francisco branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she focused on the dumping of hazardous waste, and with tribal governments to help implement recycling programs. She told SFGATE the concerns she’s hearing most from District 3 voters now are acutely different than those voters had last election.
“Rural hospitals are hanging by a thread. Older people need telehealth. Mothers having children need pediatricians available and to have insurance. Price of groceries. Protecting our democracy,” Hall said, listing off issues that are top of mind.
Her pitch is to offer Sierra voters a drastically different option from Kiley — but someone who’s still won office in this region.
“These folks are not dumb,” Hall told SFGATE. “They see what’s going on, they’re paying attention to what’s happening in D.C., what’s in the budget bill, and they know [health care] cuts are coming down. They’re frightened about what this means for them.”
Kiley names public safety, supporting small businesses and maintaining “the rule of law” as values his constituents care most about.
“Those are the values I’ve been fighting for in my time in Congress,” he said. “I hope that will come through as it did last year.”
Hall admits one significant disadvantage she has against Kiley: fundraising. The incumbent has raised substantial campaign funds. He raised over $4 million in the 2024 election, and a little over $3 million in 2022, according to public campaign data. His Democratic competitor in 2022 raised around the same amount.
In the first quarter of this year, Kiley’s campaign raised over $500,000, while Hall raised just over $153,000.
“I won’t lie, this is a tough district. Fundraising is a huge part of it,” she said. “But the enthusiasm on the ground is real, and that will only keep going.”
Cardboard congressman
In mid-June, more than 200 residents in Auburn, a city halfway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, attended a community town hall to speak out against the Republican budget bill, which at the time included $1.5 trillion in proposed spending cuts. A cardboard cutout of Kiley, dressed in a suit, was positioned at the front of the crowd, because the congressman did not show up. A handmade poster that read, “Less fundraisers, more town halls,” was taped to the wall.
Organizers from Placer County Democrats told SFGATE they’d sent multiple invites to Kiley’s office but received no response. A group of residents stood up and sang a satirical ballad to their absent representative: “Kevin Kiley, where are you? Kevin Kiley, we are so blue. ... Kevin Kiley, where are you? We write you letters, and emails, too. And your voicemail is always full, you are ignoring us. It’s true. We will never hear back from you.”
Kiley told SFGATE in a call weeks earlier that he does not attend town halls held by partisan groups, and that his constituents “overwhelmingly say they like” virtual town halls.
“I happen to represent the biggest district in California,” Kiley said. “Geographically, it’s 450 miles north to south. And you know, it’s not easy for people to devote, you know, 10 hours driving back and forth to attend an event in person.”
At the Auburn event, one woman shared her struggles as a small business owner and massage therapist in Garden Valley, a small town in the foothills of El Dorado County between Placerville and Auburn.
“We cannot afford to let this man take any more from us, the American people,” she said. “… I am not making the same income as I did when President Biden was in office. The energy has shifted, people are nervous. … The future feels uncertain, and for small business owners, that uncertainty is already becoming unsustainable. We are on the front lines of these economic shifts.”
Another attendee read testimony submitted by a resident named Candice McKee, which detailed the fears McKee had around proposed cuts to Medicaid coverage. She shared the story of her three daughters, all of whom have been diagnosed with cavernous angioma, a blood vessel abnormality that can cause seizures. All three depend on in-home care.
“As many of you know, only Medi-Cal and federal Medicaid fund in-home care. If those dollars disappear, how will disabled people get the care they need?” McKee’s testimony read.
Hall was in the crowd that night. She said the room “was overflowing.”
“The stories that people told were really heart-wrenching,” she told SFGATE. “Consistently, almost everyone who spoke talked about the loss of health care.”
Kiley has been steadily absent from scenes like this since the spring.
Susan Norman is a South Lake Tahoe resident who spent 27 years working for the U.S. Forest Service before retiring in 2017. She’s been furiously writing letters to Kiley, watching as he supports an administration that has fired federal employees, withheld crucial funding and attempted to sell public land wholesale. She hopes her voice and deep experience working on public lands can make a difference.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s insane. We need to write to our congressman and tell him to stop this effort to defund and reduce staffing for these agencies that have critical functions for our mountain town community,” Norman told SFGATE in May.
Despite her civic engagement, Norman said she has not received a direct response from Kiley beyond standardized form letters. But she did get a chance to speak to Kiley face-to-face when he came to South Lake Tahoe on March 20 to meet with a small group of people at a private South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce meeting.
Screenshot via YouTube
“It was a very small turnout. I was actually quite surprised,” Norman said. “There was probably only 12, 15 people in the room.”
In her exchange with Kiley, Norman expressed dismay about the mass firings earlier this year at the Forest Service. “He nodded his head a little bit with that, but he didn’t say much,” she said. Then Norman told Kiley her former colleagues had been discouraged from speaking to their representatives. She suggested that Kiley reach out to the people working day in and day out at land management agencies.
“He was a little insulted,” Norman said, but, “he didn’t have much of a response.”
Hours later, Norman got the response she’d been hoping for — but it didn’t come from Kiley. The outcry came from her fellow neighbors and constituents in South Lake Tahoe.
The same day Kiley spoke with the small group at the chamber of commerce, a much larger group of South Lake Tahoe residents invited Kiley to a town hall. Kiley didn’t show up. Still, people filled the so-called empty seat town hall at the local community college, sitting in every chair and standing around the edges of the room. Norman spoke in front of the crowd about the “chaos, confusion and fear” happening behind closed doors at the forest service, which manages 75% of the land in the Tahoe Basin, far more than any other land management agency.
“The need for public involvement is great across the political spectrum,” Norman said to the room. After she spoke, the crowd applauded and cheered.
Eyes on 2026
With 16 months to go until the midterms, the biggest obstacle for Democrats is not necessarily generating opposition against Kiley, but rather sustaining momentum and energy to turn out voters in 2026.
That’s one reason why California’s Democratic Party set up a permanent network of grassroots activists and volunteers to mobilize voters in the Sierra Nevada for the first time. A big part of that strategy is connecting people who live on all sides of District 3, from the ranching and logging town of Quincy to ski towns in Truckee and Mammoth Lakes.
“The Sierra is such an important area for the whole state of California. Not just for recreation — for water, for clean air, and as important habitat for endangered species,” said Chris Bubser, a Democrat and the mayor of Mammoth Lakes.
Sue Hilderbrand, northern region organizing manager for the California Democratic Party, has been key to making those connections. She lives in Chico and has almost two decades of experience in organizing grassroots political movements in the Sierra.
“People are just talking to each other and that, I believe, is where the rubber meets the road,” Hilderbrand told SFGATE. “In order to strengthen our democracy, we have to do democracy.”
Political movements in rural communities often look different than in cities or suburbs. People live farther away from each other. Many are retired or work seasonal jobs, meaning life operates on a slower pace without commuter rush hours or lunch breaks to organize events around. Social media targeting is also hard to do given the small, spread-out population centers. At the same time, people in small towns know and rely on their neighbors, even if they’re on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
“If you’ve lived in a community for a long time, you know a lot of people and you can reach out to those people,” said Kleven, the longtime Quincy resident who helped start an Indivisible group in her town.
“We know that our district is mostly Republican. We’re trying to get those people who are in between, or the soft Republicans, the more moderate ones, the ones who are upset about the things that are going on,” said Averil Kimble, another one of the Quincy Area Indivisible group’s leaders.
About 250 miles south of Quincy, in Mammoth Lakes, Kaufman, the Mono County Democratic Committee chair, has been knocking on doors and making phone calls to fellow residents in the Eastern Sierra. Mono County and Alpine County voted blue in the last presidential election, but their neighbor to the south, Inyo County, still leans Republican.
The largest town in Inyo County, Bishop, is an old ranching and farming community, but it’s changing, Kaufman said.
“A lot of younger people have been moving in. It’s got a huge climbing community. It can be more affordable than Mammoth,” Kaufman said. So she’s trying to mobilize voters there, too.
Kaufman said she’s had her share of doors slammed in her face, but the vast majority of experiences have been positive. She knows a lot of people who she says are “reasonable Republicans”; they aren’t devoted Trump fans and they feel disenfranchised by the current state of their party. The day SFGATE spoke with her in May, she was hosting one such voter for dinner: “There are reasonable people like that, people who you can have conversations with,” Kaufman said.
Three years ago, when Hilderbrand first started working full-time in the district, people didn’t believe it would be possible to flip District 3. Now, after laying so much groundwork in communities across the Sierra and seeing the burgeoning political energy, it’s a different story.
“Is the district flippable? It is. It absolutely is,” Hilderbrand said.