Republican Rep. Darrell Issa announced Thursday that he would run for reelection next year in his San Diego area district instead of moving to Texas to run in friendly GOP territory.
The announcement follows speculation that Issa was considering relocating to the red state because of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s successful campaign to redraw California voting districts in favor Democratic candidates.
“I believe that the people of San Diego County, who have elected me so many times will, in fact, regardless of registration, vote for me,” Issa told the Fox affiliate in San Diego Thursday. “I think I can hold this seat in spite of the governor’s gerrymandering and you know, my intention is to stay right where I am.”
Issa acknowledged that Texans urged him to run for a seat there, but that California is his home, where he raised his family and where his mother and three granddaughters live.
“This is my home, and I’m going to fight for it,” he said.
Issa, 72, is among the wealthiest members of Congress. The high-school dropout and Army veteran made his fortune by purchasing a struggling electronics business in 1980 and transforming it into the Viper car-alarm system, with Issa’s voice warning potential thieves to “stand back.”
The Bonsall resident has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 22 years, representing various San Diego-area districts. He headed the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during high-profile investigations of the Obama administration.
But Issa’s district, once solidly Republican, has grown more moderate in recent years. And the new congressional boundaries that California voters approved by passing Proposition 50 in November — a response by state Democrats to counter President Trump’s efforts to boost GOP seats in Congress — dramatically impacted Issa’s electorate.
His congressional district had a 12-point GOP edge in voter registration this year, but now Democrats have a lead of more than four points in the new map, according to the nonpartisan California Target Book. Several Democrats have already announced plans to challenge Issa.
The redrawing of congressional districts traditionally occurs once every decade — after the census — to account for population shifts across the nation. But after President Trump urged leaders in GOP-led states earlier this year to change congressional boundaries to boost Republican efforts to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterm election, Democratic leaders in states across the nation weighed in, notably California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Since 2011, California congressional districts have been drawn by an independent commission created by voters to stop gerrymandering and incumbent protection. But Newsom and other prominent California Democrats pushed to create new district lines that could boost the number of Democrats in the state’s 52-member delegation, the largest in the nation.
California voters approved the move in November, though the new districts are being challenged in the courts, as are new congressional boundaries drawn by Texas legislators as well as a challenge to a significant plank of the federal Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule imminently on the new Texas congressional lines, because the state’s filing deadline for candidates is Monday. And that is what fueled speculation about Issa running for a Dallas-area congressional seat, first reported by Punch Bowl News.
On Tuesday, Issa sped up a flight of stairs in the U.S. Capitol when asked about the matter by CNN’s chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju.
Multiple GOP insiders confirmed that Issa weighed his options. If he had decided to run for the Dallas-area seat, he would have had to resign from Congress, uproot his family and move to Texas. But they said Issa was also cognizant of the challenge of winning reelection in his new district.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and the leadership of the National Republican Congressional Committee have made it clear to Issa that they would not invest significant money in his campaign if he seeks reelection in California, according to a veteran California GOP fundraiser who asked for anonymity to speak candidly.
“They said we have so many targets, and you have the ability to fundraise for yourself or self-fund — so therefore you’re not a top-tier priority,” the person said.
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