ROCKLIN, Calif. — Kevin Kiley spent nine years in California politics as a Republican. He won an election to the State Assembly as a Republican. He ran in the Gavin Newsom recall as a Republican. He won a coveted congressional seat as a Republican and won it again two years later.

But on March 9, 2026, he held a press conference and announced he was breaking up with the GOP.

"Today, I'm asking the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives to have that reflected in the official roster," Kiley told reporters. "I will be the sole independent member of the House of Representatives." 

With that, Kiley became the only independent in the House, narrowed the Republican majority to 217 to 214, and launched the most unconventional re-election campaign in California this cycle. 

He is now running as a No Party Preference (NPP) candidate in the newly redrawn 6th congressional district, a seat that did not even exist in its current form until California voters approved Proposition 50 last November, and one that, by design of the Democratic Party, leans Democratic.

The central question surrounding Kiley’s campaign is one that independent and NPP voters in the 6th district will have to answer for themselves: Is Kevin Kiley a genuine independent, or is he a Republican who rebranded when his options ran out in the national gerrymandering race to the bottom?

Kiley Opposed Proposition 50

Kiley's path to this moment runs directly through Proposition 50. Approved by 64.4% of California voters on Nov. 4, 2025, Prop 50 was a constitutional amendment that temporarily suspended the authority of California's independent Citizens Redistricting Commission and handed mapmaking power to the Democratic-controlled state legislature. 

The Citizens Redistricting Commission, created by voters in 2010, had drawn California's congressional lines using a 14-member body balanced between Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Those were the lines under which Kiley had won a seat in Congress. Twice. 

The new lines, drawn by Democratic legislators at the urging of Gov. Gavin Newsom as a response to Republican redistricting in Texas, were designed to flip up to five Republican-held seats.

Kiley's old 3rd district, a vast territory stretching from the Sacramento suburbs across the Sierra Nevada mountains all the way to Death Valley, was one of the five targeted for gerrymandering. 

Under the commission's lines, Kiley won his 2022 open seat race by 7.3 points and his 2024 re-election by nearly 11 points in a district where Trump had carried the presidential vote. 

Under the Democratic legislature's new lines, the same numbered district was radically reconfigured, reaching deep into Democratic Sacramento County and flipping from a district Trump carried to one where Harris would have won by double digits.

Kiley called it what it was. 

"My district would be blown in six different directions," he said before the vote. "Both sides have been guilty of it. It's a plague on democracy, and it's uniquely bad in California, where voters put in place an independent commission to avoid exactly this." 

The proposition passed anyway, and Kiley was left with no natural home. He considered running in the new 5th district, which would have set up a primary against fellow Republican incumbent Tom McClintock. He explored the new 3rd, where Democratic incumbent Ami Bera had already announced the moment Prop 50 was called on election night in 2025. 

Kiley ultimately chose the new 6th, which includes his home city of Rocklin, along with Roseville, Citrus Heights, much of North and East Sacramento, and West Sacramento. Then, on the final day of filing, he posted what the California Target Book called "a bombshell announcement": he was leaving the Republican Party and running as no party preference candidate. 

"It is no secret I've been frustrated, at times disgusted, by the hyper-partisanship in Congress," Kiley said. "In the last year, it's led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a massive increase in healthcare costs, and of course, a pointless redistricting war." 

In an interview with CBS, Kiley addressed his choice to run in the new 6th over a safer Republican district directly. 

"It's true that I was fully prepared to run in the new 5th, having tested the waters and with polls showing a favorable outlook in a 'safe' district. But doing what's easy and what's right are often not the same." 

The Sixth Congressional District Got Gerrymandered

Under the old commission-drawn lines, the 6th was a safely Democratic seat. Now, only half the district's former voters remain. 

Prop 50 stripped away deep blue Arden-Arcade and Rancho Cordova and replaced them with the reliably Republican Placer County communities of Roseville and Rocklin. 

A district that went for Harris by 13.9 points and Newsom by 8.8 points is now one where Harris's margin shrinks to 8.5 points and Newsom's to just 1.5 points. 

Democratic registration still leads Republican by roughly 10 points districtwide, but the old double-digit advantage is gone.

The district's three counties each tell a different story. 

Sacramento County makes up 59% of total registration and leans Democratic by nearly 17 points. 

Yolo County, the smallest slice at 6.7%, leans Democratic by 25 points. 

Placer County, which accounts for 34% of the district and includes Rocklin, leans Republican by 5.9 points, the only county in the district where Republicans outnumber Democrats.

The district's demographics have also shifted. White voters make up 54.9% of the citizen voting age population, down from 58.4% under the old lines. Latino voters account for 18.4% and Asian voters 10.6%. The share of Black voters in the citizen voting age population increases from 7% to 10.1%.

The most recent comparable election result in this territory is a stark reminder of what Kiley faces. In November 2024, under the old district lines, Democratic incumbent Ami Bera defeated Republican Christine Bish by more than 15 points, 57.6% to 42.4%, carrying all of Sacramento County. 

The Prop 50 lines have changed the district's composition, but the underlying Democratic lean has not disappeared.

More Than 100,000 Unaffiliated Voters Will Decide

Kiley's path to November runs through the district's 95,705 NPP voters, concentrated in communities where neither major political party dominates and where voters have already shown they are willing to split their tickets.

The new areas Prop 50 added to the district account for 225,526 voters. Roseville is the district's single largest community, with 104,384 voters, a Republican registration edge of 4.1 points, and a Trump margin of 2.8 points in 2024. 

Rocklin, with 48,064 voters, leans Republican by 9.4 points and went for Trump by 6.8 points. Orangevale, with 24,070 voters, leans right by 13.6 points and backed Trump by 14 points. 

West Sacramento is the lone heavily Democratic addition, with 30,306 voters and a 25.1-point Democratic registration edge.

Among the 224,658 voters carried over from the old district, Sacramento city contributes the most, 97,610 voters, with a Democratic registration edge of 36.5 points and a Harris margin of 36.3 points. 

Citrus Heights, with 51,193 voters, is the key toss-up community: Republican by 3.2 points on registration while backing Trump by 6.2 points in 2024. Foothill Farms leans Democratic by 7.7 points, but went to Harris by less than a single point. Antelope is essentially even on registration but voted for Trump by 6 points.

Those swing communities, Roseville, Citrus Heights, Antelope, and Foothill Farms, are where Kiley's independent brand either earns its value or proves hollow. The ticket-splitting is already there. The voters who back a Democrat for president and a Republican for Congress are precisely the voters an independent candidate needs. 

The question is whether voters will see Kiley’s message as genuinely refreshing or as something desperate. 

Five Democrats and Two Republicans Compete in Nonpartisan Top-Two Primary

Seven candidates qualified for the June 2 top-two primary. Five are Democrats: Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho; former State Senator and physician Richard Pan; Lauren Babb-Tomlinson, chief of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte; Tyler Vandenberg, a former Jeopardy! Champion and Marine Corps veteran, and Martha Guerrero, a mayor and social worker from Yolo County. One Republican, Michael Enoch Stansfield, an applications engineer and author from Placer County, also qualified. Three other Republicans who filed under the old district lines did not make the ballot.

The California Democratic Party held a pre-endorsement conference but reached no consensus. Pan received 39% support, short of the threshold for an official endorsement, leaving the Democratic lane without a unified candidate heading into the primary.

Fundraising tells its own story. Among Democrats, Ho raised $377,199 and held $330,161 on hand as of Dec. 31, 2025. Pan raised $317,976 with $128,697 remaining. Babb-Tomlinson raised $162,273 with $139,763 on hand. Vandenberg raised $38,419 with $11,880 cash and $19,434 in debt. Guerrero reported no activity. Stansfield reported nothing.

Congressman Kiley is in a different financial universe entirely. He reported $2,087,842 in receipts, $417,684 in expenses, and $2,051,136 in cash on hand as of Dec. 31, 2025, with just $9,837 in debt. 

Kiley has more cash on hand than every other candidate in the race combined. Add to that the name recognition of a two-term incumbent whose current district overlaps substantially with the new 6th, and the picture is clearer: in a primary where five Democrats are splitting their party's vote, Kiley seems to have every advantage needed to consolidate the non-Democratic lane and advance to November.

Under California's top-two system, the two highest vote-getters on June 2 advance regardless of party. If Kiley makes it through, he will almost certainly face one Democrat in November, in a district that still leans Democratic, with a voting record his opponent will spend heavily to deconstruct.

Is He Really Independent?

Here is where the politics get genuinely interesting, and where independent voters have the most reason to look carefully.

Kiley's critics have a straightforward case. The Maddow blog points out that he voted with Trump 98% of the time. He voted for the Republican domestic policy megabill, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, last summer.

Kiley says he is committed to caucusing with House Republicans through the end of his current term. 

And when asked whether he would continue caucusing with Republicans if re-elected, he declined to commit, saying only that he would do "whatever serves my constituents." 

Pan put it directly: "Kevin Kiley can try to rebrand himself, but voters know his extreme record. He has stood with Donald Trump 98% of the time and was named a 'MAGA Champion'.” 

Kiley's defenders, and Kiley himself, will try and argue a counter-case. 

NBC reported that Kiley voted with Democrats to terminate Trump's tariffs on Canada.

He introduced the PRESS Act, which passed with bipartisan support, to protect journalists from being compelled to reveal their sources. 

Most notably, Kiley was publicly critical of Speaker Johnson and introduced legislation to ban mid-decade redistricting nationwide, legislation Johnson never brought to the floor ("About," Office of Congressman Kevin Kiley). 

Ballotpedia reported that he told reporters he did not notify Republican leadership before changing his registration from Republican to no party preference.

Kiley’s frustration with the GOP, by some accounts, predates the gerrymandered map.

In a country where independent registration is rising, both parties are broadly unpopular, and voters are increasingly skeptical of partisan loyalty as a virtue, the word "independent" carries genuine electoral value. Kiley is now betting his career on it. The unaffiliated voters of the new 6th district will decide whether it was a bet worth making.

Who Is Kevin Kiley?

Kevin Kiley was born on Jan. 30, 1985, and grew up in Granite Bay, where he was valedictorian of Granite Bay High School. His father was a physician, and his mother was a special education teacher. He earned a bachelor's degree in social studies from Harvard University in 2007, then taught high school English in South Los Angeles before attending law school. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2012 and a master's in secondary education from Loyola Marymount University. He later served as an adjunct professor at McGeorge School of Law.

Before entering politics, Kiley worked as an associate at the Irell and Manella law firm until 2015, when he joined the California Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general, helping prosecute the civil case against China's Huawei Technologies for intellectual property theft. 

First elected to the California State Assembly in 2016, Kiley served there until winning his congressional seat in 2022, defeating Democrat Kermit Jones by 7.3 points in an open-seat race. 

In between, he ran for governor in the 2021 Newsom recall election, finishing sixth among replacement candidates with just over 3% of the vote. 

He was re-elected to Congress in 2024, defeating Democrat Jessica Morse by nearly 11 points. 

Kiley and his wife, Chelsee, reside in Rocklin.

The man asking independent voters for their support is, by any measure, an accomplished politician with a serious biography and a genuine record of public service. He is also a politician who spent nine years as a Republican, voted with his party the overwhelming majority of the time, and changed his registration on the last day of filing in a district drawn to defeat him.

All of these things are true. What voters in California's new 6th congressional district decide to do with that information is the story of this race.

About California's Top Two Primary

The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9.*

This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, the California Target Book, California FPPC campaign finance filings, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Ballotpedia, and other local and regional reporting.

Want to Know More?

"About." Office of Congressman Kevin Kiley.

"Ami Bera Announces Run for District 3 Seat Following Prop. 50's Passage." Fox40 News, 5 Nov. 2025.

Benen, Steve. "GOP Member Becomes an Independent, Narrowing the House Republicans' Edge Again." MaddowBlog, 9 Mar. 2026.

Brownstein, et al. "Election 2025: California's Prop 50 Passes." Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, 7 Nov. 2025.

"California's Special Election: Prop 50 and the Future of District 3." Spectrum News 1, 2 Oct. 2025.

Herrington, Torrie. "Rep. Kevin Kiley Announces He's Leaving the GOP, Effective Immediately." Notus, 9 Mar. 2026.

"How Proposition 50 Just Rewrote California's 2026 Congressional Map." KQED, Nov. 2025.

"Key Takeaways from the Proposition 50 Election." PPIC, 12 Nov. 2025.

"Kevin Kiley's District 3 Among Those Targeted for Change Under California's Proposition 50." CBS Sacramento, Oct. 2025.

Lee, MJ. "Republican Kevin Kiley to Seek Re-Election as an Independent for California Seat." NBC News, 2 Mar. 2026.

Padilla, Cecilio. "Rep. Kevin Kiley Announces Run in California's Redrawn 6th Congressional District." CBS Sacramento, 7 Mar. 2026.

"Prop 50 Congressional Maps Create 'Slider Puzzle' Effect Among Incumbents, Challengers." ABC10, Nov. 2025.

"Prop 50 Leaves Kevin Kiley Without a Clear District for 2026 Run." CapRadio, 5 Nov. 2025.

"Rep. Kevin Kiley." GovTrack.

"Rep. Kevin Kiley Becomes the 10th Member of the U.S. Congress to Change Party Affiliation Since 2000." Ballotpedia News, 11 Mar. 2026.