Kiley faces Pan in California House race after leaving GOP over redistricting
Rep. Kevin Kiley, running as an independent in California’s 6th Congressional District, will face Democrat Richard Pan in the November general election after both advanced from the June primary. Kiley narrowly led the primary with 47,165 votes (24.3%), while Pan, a former state senator and physician, secured 45,008 votes (23.2%) to advance to the general election.
Kiley’s decision to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent came directly from redistricting. In March 2026, he announced he was dropping his GOP affiliation, citing frustration with partisan gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting. His move followed California voters’ approval of Proposition 50 in November 2025, which allowed the state legislature to redraw congressional maps outside the normal redistricting cycle.
The newly redrawn maps under Prop 50 transformed Kiley’s original District 3 from a Republican-leaning seat into a solidly Democratic district. Democrats had deliberately redrawn five California d…