Copyright Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Mike McGuire was in his element, standing behind a lectern at the Cloverdale Veterans Memorial Hall, calling the roll of local luminaries, then extending an “extra big thanks” to “the incredible team” from Alexander Valley Healthcare, who’d gathered Wednesday to celebrate the $3.5-million state grant to kick off construction of a long-awaited community health center. It was understood, if not spoken, that McGuire, the outgoing president pro tem of the California Senate, who’d grown up just down the highway in Healdsburg, had a large hand in steering those funds back to northern Sonoma County. After delivering the good news — “Shovels are gonna start hitting the ground in early 2026!” — he posed, with a preacher’s zeal, this rhetorical question: “Are you ready to go, Cloverdale?” Hanging in the air, just days before Californians go to the polls on Nov. 4 to vote on Proposition 50, is a different question: “Are you ready to go to Congress, Mike McGuire?” Recent spending by McGuire’s insurance commissioner campaign, a set of social media ads and his conspicuous silence on the question make up a small, but compelling collection of breadcrumbs. Prop. 50 is the ballot measure which, if approved, would redraw the state’s congressional districts to carve out five new Democratic seats — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s hardball response to a gerrymandered political map released by the Texas Legislature in August. California’s rejiggered map, released Aug. 15, features a redrawn 1st District that can fairly be described as Democrat-friendly in general, and McGuire-friendly in particular. The proposed district takes in Santa Rosa at its southern end, then runs up the Highway 101 corridor — through Healdsburg, where McGuire was a wunderkind member of the school board, at the age of 19, and later the youngest mayor in the city’s history. Stretching east from Mendocino County through Lake County, the district goes farther east still, taking in Glenn and Tehama counties in the Sacramento Valley before running up the foothills and through the mountains in Butte, Plumas and Lassen counties, all the way to the Nevada border. It’s a demanding geography with a mix of rural and suburban interests, presenting a “logistical challenge,” for candidates pursuing the seat, said David McCuan, professor of political studies at Sonoma State University. “This is a district that is tailor-made for the Energizer Bunny,” McCuan said, dropping the nickname McGuire earned — again — in the Legislature for his go-go approach to serving in public office. As it happens, McGuire terms out of the California Legislature in late 2026 — just in time to be sworn in as a new member of 110th U.S. Congress. Between his formidable campaign machinery, name recognition and the close-to-home concentration of voters in the new district, the largest share of them Democrats — he already represents a good chunk of the people who would become his constituents in Congress — the 46-year-old would arguably become the race favorite the moment he declared he was running. So, is he running? Asked about a possible House run Wednesday evening, as the veterans hall crowd hall thinned out, the state senator smiled and said, “I hear ya,” then defaulted to one of his go-to refrains. “I am hyper-focused on the issues facing our communities. That’s why today is such a milestone.” McGuire would not say he is running, which makes sense, considering the district he might run in does not yet exist. Nor did he rule it out. Beneath that tightrope act, a small but intriguing body of evidence is growing, indicating he is poised to take that plunge. In August 2023, long before Prop. 50 was conceived, and with his term-limited time in the Legislature several years away, McGuire opened a committee to raise cash for a possible 2026 run for California insurance commissioner. The move was not uncommon; politicians preparing for their next step often have such committees to keep the fundraising spigots open as they contemplate their options. As the possibility of a run for Congress waxed, however, his interest in the former office has seemed to wane. Asked Friday if the senator had ruled out running for insurance commissioner, a spokesperson for McGuire did not respond. McGuire hasn’t struggled to raise funds for that campaign, which held a healthy $1.2 million cash balance at the end of the last regular reporting period on June 30, according to the California Secretary of State’s campaign finance website. A separate committee, controlled by McGuire and created in June to support local and state ballot measures, reported a $691,302 cash balance for the same period. Last week, McGuire’s insurance commissioner campaign reported two contributions to Newsom’s Yes on 50 committee — one totaling $142,500 and the other totaling $10,350. The donations coincide with an ad the campaign ran on Facebook and Instagram encouraging voters to support Prop. 50. It’s not the only social media ad tied to the campaign this month. A set of four ads, running on those same platforms, make no mention of Prop. 50, but call out President Donald Trump over his administration’s spending cuts before introducing McGuire as someone who “fights for affordability” and “moves California forward.” “No matter what happens in D.C., we’ll never stop fighting for you and your family here at home,” the ads proclaim. While those spots were paid for by McGuire’s insurance commissioner campaign, there’s no mention or clear reference to that office in them. Instead they focus on various topics including wildfire, schools, jobs, inflation and health care. Spending down those insurance commissioner campaign funds, according to two Sacramento insiders, is a strong indication that McGuire intends to run for Congress. Only a limited amount of that money from that bucket, intended for a state race, could be used in a federal election, the sources explained. McGuire’s office did not respond to a question about those spending patterns and what they signaled, if anything, about his intentions for political office beyond the Legislature. There is at least one well-known Butte County Democrat already seeking front-runner status in any race for a reshaped 1st District. Audrey Denney, a Chico-based educator and nonprofit leader, declared her candidacy for the seat on Oct. 6. Should McGuire enter the fray, he’d face off with Denney and any other Democrats in a June primary to decide who runs in the midterm election a year from now. Denney, a former professor of agriculture at Chico State, grew up on her family’s farm and ranch in Paso Robles, and served as a Future Farmers of America state officer. She’s run twice against the 1st District incumbent, Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, losing by a margin of 9.8 points in 2018, and 14 points in 2020 — in a district where LaMalfa was accustomed to ringing up much wider victory margins. The Richvale rice grower, who like most in his party opposes Prop. 50, has sent mixed signals about whether he’d run for reelection in a reshaped 1st District, where Democrats would enjoy a 10 percentage point advantage in registered voters. The filing deadline isn’t until March. In her past bids for the seat, Denney raised a highly respectable $3.5 million despite her policy of not accepting PAC money. “She wouldn’t be running if she didn’t think this was the right district for her leadership, and the right time,” said Alex Brown, Denney’s campaign manager. Still, McGuire and his team have remained tight-lipped about his moves. “Senator McGuire is laser-focused on tackling the toughest issues facing communities on the North Coast and passing Proposition 50,” Grant Martin, a spokesperson for McGuire said in a statement. Bill Dodd, the former state senator from Napa, said questions about a House run for his friend and confidant are a tad premature — even if another Sacramento insider said any announcement was likely to come within a week of Election Day. The vote on Prop. 50 “still has to go the way we want,“ Dodd said. For now, “All this talk about ‘Is he running?’ — it’s a distraction.” A run for Congress “is an opportunity that may present itself to him,” Dodd said. “And if it does, he’s going to be ready to put his best foot forward.” You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88. You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.
