District 1 candidates talk about affordability, healthcare and their campaign for Northern California congressional seat

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Editor's note: This is the part of a series of stories that are appearing this week on the June 2 primary election in California. The stories include comments from candidates who agreed to interviews with The Center Square.

(The Center Square) – As Republicans and Democrats compete for the newly-drawn Congressional District 1, affordability, healthcare, the conflict in Iran and who is filling the late Rep. Doug LaMalfa's shoes are on the top of candidates' minds.

Those who threw their hat in the race spoke of LaMalfa, a Republican who represented House District 1 until his death in January at age 65.

“It’s a big reason that I’m running,” California Assemblymember James Gallagher, R-East Nicolaus, told The Center Square. “He was a political mentor to me and someone who represented this area very well, and so I’m honored to be running to fill his very big boots.”

Gallagher, who said he worked closely with LaMalfa, said that as farmers from Northern California, they both knew the agricultural industry. Gallagher said they were both focused on fire prevention and fuels reduction, removing barriers to accomplishing fire prevention goals and finding funding for programs that helped communities affected by wildfires, and increasing water storage.

Major differences between the two Northern California natives are few and far between, Gallagher added.

“I don’t know that there’s a tremendous amount of difference in our views and in the things we worked on,” Gallagher said. “Our positions on things were very similar.”

As of May 18, Gallagher received $672,590.60 in campaign contributions from 675 individual donors, including the Eureka Political Action Committee, which is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Palm Desert and who is himself running for reelection in the newly-drawn House District 40.

Eureka PAC gave a total of $10,000 to Gallagher’s campaign, according to campaign filings from the Federal Elections Commission. Several other political action committees gave $5,000, including for the California Water Service Group, Mr. Southern Missourian in the House, Republican Mainstreet Partnership and the American Pistachio Growers Association.

Gallagher’s nine years in the California Assembly have seen a consistent voting record of voting down new or increased taxes, as seen by his support of a bill that prevented levying a sales tax on cannabis in 2024, opposing a bill that aimed to levy a tax on managed care organizations in the state in 2019 and favoring a bill to expand the state’s earned income tax credit in 2020.

However, with one of his campaign issues prioritizing strengthening public safety, The Center Square asked Gallagher if he thinks keeping taxes down and allocating more money to public safety and law enforcement are at odds with each other.

“Budgets are always about what you prioritize,” Gallagher told The Center Square. “We actually spend a lot of money both in the state of California and nationally, but the question is how do you spend the money. I always think we need to make public safety a No. 1 priority.”

California state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Santa Rosa, the Democratic frontrunner for District 1, said he is most concerned about $1 trillion of Medicaid cuts ultimately hurting 3 million Californians, who are set to lose their healthcare in 2027. The implementation of those cuts are scheduled for after the midterm elections, McGuire said.

“The Medicaid cuts will hit the rural hospitals harder than most,” McGuire told The Center Square. “People are scared about losing their health care and scared about losing their local hospital.”

McGuire, who has supported legislation in his time as a state senator that helps fund rural hospitals, voted in favor of a 2022 measure that established an electronic cigarette tax to fund seismic safety improvements to hospitals. He also voted to pass legislation that aimed to improve infant and maternal health, as well as a 2025 measure that established a decade-long pilot program that provides standby perinatal services at rural hospitals.

Additional cuts to the federally-funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as CalFresh in California, will kick many of the state’s residents off the program, which McGuire said would take food off the table for millions of people. That could also impact community grocery stores that depend on CalFresh recipients spending their food benefit money at their store, McGuire said.

“That also has an impact on local economies,” McGuire said. “Rural grocery stores are dependent on that federal assistance to make their monthly bottom line.”

The rising cost of living across the country, including the increasing cost of housing and gasoline, poses affordability problems for many, McGuire said, particularly for average American families.

“Trump’s tariff taxes have caused chaos throughout the country,” McGuire said. “This district, in particular, has been hit by tariffs on fertilizer, which is up $100 per ton today compared to a year ago. The American people are eating 94% of all the tariff costs associated with Trump’s tariff taxes. Foreign governments are only eating 6%.”

McGuire received $990,566.23 in total campaign contributions, according to the Federal Elections Commission through May 18. The largest campaign contributor was the Resource Conservation Political Action Committee, which contributed $7,000 to McGuire’s campaign.

Several other political action committees gave $5,000 to McGuire’s campaign, including the Machinists Nonpartisan League of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Wine Institute, California School Employees Association, the American Hospital Association, the National Union of Healthcare Workers and ActBlue, a political action committee of the Democratic Party.

ActBlue, which gave two $5,000 contributions to McGuire’s, also gave many other smaller contributions, including dozens of individual contributions between $5 and $4,000.

Chico-based attorney Audrey Denney, a Democratic candidate for House District 1, told The Center Square that she’s running to combat a political and economic system that works for powerful corporations and billionaire donors.

“We wonder why PG&E rates are going up, and why fire insurance costs so much for people’s houses, and why we can’t afford groceries and health care is getting more expensive every day,” Denney said. “Issues like rural health care and making life affordable for people who live here and managing forests to mitigate fire risk, those are all things that we talk about up here.”

Denney said that while she and LaMalfa differed in their views of what policies made people’s lives better, they had a good rapport.

“I remember there was a debate in 2018 between he and I, and he said, ‘Audrey and I disagree on almost everything, but we both sure do love the San Francisco Giants,’ ” Denney said. “It brings a smile to my face every time I think about it because it reminds me that even in these really divided political times we’re in, if we choose to, we can look at each other as humans first rather than people with different political affiliations.”

Approximately 20 groups endorsed Denney for House District 1, including the California Democratic Socialists of America – perhaps an interesting endorsement for a candidate running to represent what is largely a conservative, rural part of California.

“I honestly don’t know why they did,” Denney said. “I didn’t apply for that endorsement. They just popped me in their voter guide, and they popped me in the voter guide the same day there were ads put out that I’m a MAGA Republican.”

Other stances Denney took included opposition to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is widely expected to run for president. Despite Newsom being one of the most-talked about Democratic presidential hopefuls, Denney said she would vote for someone else in the race for the White House.

“I wouldn’t vote for him,” Denney said. “There’s a lot that he’s done that I don’t agree with. I think he’s the epitome of what corporate-captured establishment Democrats look like.”

According to the Federal Elections Commission, Denney received $686,686.28 in total contributions through May 18. The largest contributor was a political action committee called 314 Action Impact Slate, which gave $10,010.81. While that was the largest single contribution to Denney’s campaign, 314 Action Impact Slate made another donation, this one for $7,000. Another, similar organization under the name 314 Action Fund contributed $5,000.

Retired software engineer Richard T. Minner, an independent candidate for House District 1, said he wants to run for Congress because he opposed California’s mid-decade redistricting effort, which voters passed in November 2025.

“Mainly, it was just when Prop. 50 went through. That put me over the line,” Minner told The Center Square. “A lot of folks are just pretty disgusted with the whole thing, so I thought I’d offer an alternative. All of Congress is Democratic or Republican, which is kind of absurd.”

California’s mid-decade redistricting push, which was followed by similar efforts in other states, was disrespectful to the voters of the state, Minner added.

“I’m pretty disgusted with both parties because they treat the voters with contempt,” Minner said. “It’s all about guaranteed seats. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Minner said he supports some tax breaks, particularly for corporations that do business in California.

“There’s always going to have to be some reasonable exclusions from income tax,” Minner told The Center Square. “It’s the cost of doing business.”

The state’s increasing affordability crisis is a natural consequence of the massive amount of income coming into California from the technology industry, Minner said, but some parts of the state are more affordable than other places.

“There’s certain things you can do to mitigate supply and demand, but supply and demand is going to dominate,” Minner said. “There’s nothing you can do about that. You have all this money going in, and it’s going to go somewhere.”

That’s particularly apparent in housing prices, Minner continued.

“It’s kind of unfortunate, when people say nobody can afford some house, it’s like, well, somebody did,” Minner said. “It’s really an issue of extreme wealth in certain pockets, and you’ve got regular families trying to make a go of it, and they’re being forced to move. You can only do so much.”

The ongoing conflict in Iran, now in its fourth month, resulted in a dwindling supply of oil coming to the United States. That corresponding result in quickly-rising oil prices has pushed gas prices in the state increasingly higher in the last few months, according to previous reporting by The Center Square.

“[Iran] has been obstinate, but they’ve also got their claims to sovereignty, which are not to be just brushed aside,” Minner said. “But at the same time, it’s an undeniably repressive regime. Is what we’re doing right now the right response? I’m hoping they can sort this out and not have it escalate.”

Minner has not raised any campaign funds, according to the Federal Elections Commission.

Voting centers will be open May 23 to June 1 in Voter's Choice Act counties and May 30 to June 1 elsewhere. Voters should check with their counties for further details.

Polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. June 2, Election Day. For more information, go to the Secretary of State's website, sos.ca.gov. Early election results will be published on the evening of June 2 at www.thecentersquare.com/california.