Rep. Ken Calvert said he will run in the redrawn 40th District — which now bleeds into more than half of the representative’s current 41st District.
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) will challenge incumbent Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.) for California’s newly drawn 40th District, he announced Wednesday, teeing up a contentious face-off between two battle-tested Republicans in a redefined, deep-red seat.
Calvert has represented California’s 41st District, encompassing parts of Riverside County, following redistricting in 2022. But the Republican lawmaker’s formerly deep-red seat has now been redrawn as a Democratic stronghold under Proposition 50, which resoundingly passed Tuesday and will allow the state to redraw congressional lines in favor of Democrats.
Calvert announced in a press release Wednesday that he will instead run in the redrawn 40th District — which now bleeds into more than half of the representative’s current 41st District, he said in the statement, and is now set to be an even safer net for Republicans than in past cycles.
“Californians in the newly drawn 40th District deserve a proven conservative they can trust and a fighter who has delivered results for Riverside and Orange County for decades,” Calvert said in the release. “No one else comes close to my record of service to the new 40th. I’ve lived here my entire life and already represent the majority of this district in Congress.”
Kim, who’s represented areas encompassing the Orange and Riverside counties since 2021, said just hours after Calvert‘s announcement that she intends to run for reelection in her home district. She panned Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting efforts but stopped short of acknowledging her colleague’s newly launched challenge to take over the seat.
Kim has also survived previous gerrymandering to her seat, winning reelection in 2022 when her seat in California’s 39th District was redrawn into the 40th District.
“Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento made partisan deals behind closed doors to redraw districts in ways that benefit themselves and their allies, not voters,” she wrote. “I’m running because it is clear we need an America First champion to take the fight to radical Democrats and help President Trump unleash the Golden Age.
Proposition 50 put a handful of Republican seats at risk in addition to Calvert’s. Some of those vulnerable members have mused that they’re no longer faced with the choice of whether to run but instead of which district to run for.
“I am running for reelection,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), whose seat in California’s 3rd District was fractured in the gerrymandering, told POLITICO. “My district was split six different ways, so it will be hard to choose which to run in.”