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The powerful Democrat trying to win over California’s rural voters

Quincy, population 1,600, is not exactly the sort of place you regularly run into California’s most powerful Democratic lawmakers. Nestled deep in the Sierra Nevada, the forested town is in a rural and reliably red county that – like nearly all of far northern California – has sent Republicans to Congress for nearly half a century.

But on a Tuesday night in mid-April, Mike McGuire, a three-term state lawmaker who previously led California’s senate, was inside a local veterans hall rallying a crowd of some 40 people with the verve of a baptist preacher.

“No matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican, you want to send your kid to a good public school. You want to be able to keep your hospital open and to keep healthcare thriving in the community that you love. Am I right, ladies and gentlemen?” he said to applause. “That’s what we need to fight for right now.”

As McGuire, now on his third visit to the area in recent months, spoke about the need to bring more jobs to rural America and pass Medicare for all, the crowd grew louder. “The only way that we’re going to turn this country around is that Democrats in this country, leadership in Washington DC, need to grow a damn spine.”

Until this year, McGuire, a 46-year-old from the small wine country city of Healdsburg, would have been an unlikely candidate for Congress in this part of the state. Plumas county, where Quincy is located, is a longtime Republican stronghold where voters have backed Donald Trump for the last three elections by a large margin.

But California’s Proposition 50, which redrew the state’s voting maps to favor Democrats, is making the region competitive again. It put Quincy in the newly drawn first congressional district, which is at the heart of the battle for control of Congress.

Upping the ante even more, the first district will see not one, but two contests, over who gets to represent it in the US House. A first this summer to choose who will serve out the last few months in the term of Doug LaMalfa, the representative who died unexpectedly in January. And a second in the November midterm election to decide who will represent the district in Washington in the next two years.

In both races, McGuire is facing off against a Republican state lawmaker and a progressive Democrat, each with deep ties to the area. The first will fall under the old boundaries – where McGuire does not live – and with mostly Republican voters and no hometown advantage, he faces an uphill battle.

But McGuire is considered the leading contender in the midterm election. Political analysts have described the new district as “tailor-made” for him. He’s received endorsements from major unions, tribal leaders, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi and both of California’s senators.

It’s made this election cycle the most complicated in recent memory in this section of northern California, and one with guaranteed national implications.

“The way Democrats deliver the house in November is by delivering the five seats in California. The way you deliver the five seats in California is you have to deliver the NorCal seat,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State who previously taught McGuire.

Will a Democrat who has held one of the highest-ranking positions in the statehouse be able to win over voters in a region that has felt so forgotten by politicians in Sacramento and DC that residents sought to create their own state?

With key elections quickly approaching, McGuire is making his pitch to voters across the district – in both its current and future configurations. Over the last five months, he’s hosted nearly 40 town hall events from Santa Rosa to the 300 person town of Sierraville nearly four hours away.

It’s an approach that historically has resonated here. LaMalfa, a rice farmer, had a reputation for making frequent appearances at community events across his sprawling district. He went to parades and backyard barbecues from the Sacramento Valley to the Oregon border, helping him connect with rural – and primarily conservative – voters.

On his visits to the region, McGuire has sought to introduce himself as a man of the people, telling crowds how his mother and grandmother, a “hard-nosed” prune rancher and grape grower, raised him with limited means. He started his career in politics on a school board at age 19 before eventually running for senate.

The legislator is campaigning on a few key arguments: the idea that Trump poses a major threat to US democracy, Democrats have failed to stand up to the president and have forgotten rural America, and that all people, regardless of their political beliefs, want a more affordable life. He’s argued that with his track record, he is the person best equipped to champion rural northern California in Congress and fight to bring more jobs and healthcare to the region.

McGuire has also focused on wildfires and lowering insurance costs, an issue of huge concern both in his hometown and across the first congressional district, which has seen some of California’s deadliest and most destructive fires.

During his campaign events, he’s had harsh words for Democrats, who he says must move on from the era of “go along and get along” politics, and Trump.

“I believe that Donald Trump is a fascist. He’s corrupt. He’s a charlatan, a narcissist, and one of the worst things that has happened to this nation in modern American history,” he told the crowd in Quincy. “We would be complicit if we were silent [at] this moment in American history.”

The president has enjoyed widespread support in this part of the state. But McGuire’s criticism lands well with the people who show up to his events, and typically result in cheers and applause.

Still, McGuire also faces skepticism from voters who view him as an outsider who does not understand the region or its challenges. Resentment and frustration with elected officials in Sacramento and Washington are an enduring feature of politics here. The area has long been home to a secessionist movement known as the State of Jefferson.

“Candidly, he’s going to be seen as the big city guy, as an interloper. He’s going to be seen as someone who is not welcome at some level,” McCuan said. “But that will not dissuade him one bit.”

In response to those doubts, McGuire has highlighted his record and experience as the first rural Democrat to lead California’s senate in more than a century.

He points at his efforts in Trinity, the conservative and remote county up north that has never voted for him. But, he said in Quincy, he’s spent significant time in the area and helped secure large investments for the fire department, and to rebuild the high school, including an all-weather track and evacuation center.

Jaime Green, the district superintendent, praised McGuire’s contributions in an interview with Sonoma Magazine. Green, a Republican, told the magazine that McGuire, who he described as the “best politician in all the United States of America”, delivered for the district and “damn near made me a Democrat”.

McGuire has encountered hesitation from some Democrats too, primarily those who have supported his competitor, Audrey Denney. The progressive twice ran against LaMalfa and gained significantly more votes than previous challengers.

In a campaign ad, Denney, who has committed to not accepting corporate Pac money, criticized McGuire as an establishment candidate and a career politician “funded by PG&E, big drug companies, and health insurers”.

McGuire’s campaign rejected Denney’s characterization, stating they were misleading accusations at odds with the senator’s record, and pointing to his endorsement from the California Nurses Association and support for universal healthcare. The campaign added he hasn’t accepted donations from the utility PG&E, major pharmaceutical companies or health insurance corporations while running for Congress, and had previously returned a PG&E contribution.

“Voters are fed up with this kind of negative, divisive politics. They want a proven fighter who’s won against Trump. That’s Mike McGuire,” said Jackson Boaz, a campaign spokesperson.

McGuire, political observers say, is unlikely to win the special election. Lisa Pruitt, a professor and rural law expert at the UC Davis School of Law, said while McGuire understands rural issues, he will likely struggle in that race because he is a progressive from an area closer to a major population center.

“It’s hard for me to imagine a Democrat winning that district,” she said.

But his odds are far better in the November election, with the composition of the new district and the majority of voters concentrated in the county where he lives. The Chico Enterprise-Record, one of the primary local newspapers in the district, split its endorsement, backing James Gallagher, the Republican assemblyman, in the special election and supporting McGuire in the midterm contest.

The political upheaval is emblematic of the way that mid-decade redistricting is reshaping representation across the US. While states typically redraw districts after the once a decade census, Trump set off a wave of new congressional maps after urging Texas to adopt changes to favor Republicans during the midterm elections. California soon followed, as have a number of other states including Florida and Virginia.

In far northern California, it has renewed Republican fears that the region will be forgotten and ignored by politicians, but Democrats, long outnumbered, have celebrated even the idea of having progressive representation for the first time in so many decades.

“We fought and fought and we kept saying we’re going to get it to turn purple. We are going to get one of our candidates elected. And then we were disappointed,” said Sherilyn Schwartz, with a local chapter of the progressive grassroots organization Indivisible. “This will be a lot easier and we’re really excited.”

Other progressives said the shake-up and McGuire’s event marked the first time they had been in a room with politically like-minded people in their community.

“It’s very freeing being able to not feel ashamed of what your political views are,” said Ava Ward, a 19-year-old college student.

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