A day after California voters passed Proposition 50, Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from Long Beach whose district stands to gain more Republican voters than any other House member under the new congressional maps, pledged to represent all constituents in what will be California’s new 42nd Congressional District if he’s reelected.
“Regardless of political parties — I’ll represent everyone. And there’s great people and neighborhoods all across the new district,” Garcia wrote in a Nov. 5 social media post.
The hoopla surrounding the 42nd Congressional District isn’t just that Garcia will be running in an area that will look vastly different from what it does today.
It’s that the openly gay, progressive liberal who, up to this point, has represented a heavily Democratic district in deep-blue Los Angeles County, would be the lawmaker for some of Orange County’s most conservative coastal communities, including Huntington Beach and part of Newport Beach, if reelected.
In 2023, the Huntington Beach City Council voted to allow only government and various military flags to fly on city-owned property. Critics viewed the ban on non-government banners as a way to keep the Pride flag — a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community — from being displayed.
And the city, where all seven City Council members are Republicans, is also where President Donald Trump received over 9,500 more votes than former Vice President Kamala Harris during last year’s presidential election, according to the California secretary of state’s office.
Trump also won in Newport Beach, where he received over 8,300 more votes than Harris last year. (Trump ultimately lost not only California but also Orange County as a whole in 2024.)
Garcia, on the other hand, has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration. As the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, he’s relentlessly pursued the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. And just this week, he led a congressional hearing into alleged misconduct by federal immigration agents carrying out Trump’s mass deportation policy.
Although voters in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach tend to be more conservative than Long Beach, Garcia said there are still plenty of people who care about issues that he also finds important.
“Yes, there’s a lot more conservative folks here,” Garcia acknowledged over a lunch of salmon fish tacos and iced tea at Duke’s restaurant in Huntington Beach this week. “There’s also a ton of Democrats and progressives here.”
“And,” Garcia continued, “there’s a ton of people that are independent that oppose Donald Trump’s plan to open up the Huntington Beach coast, the Newport (Beach) coast, the Seal Beach coast to new oil rigs. Those are issues that we’re going to hopefully find common ground on.”
Currently, the 42nd Congressional District, which Garcia was first elected to represent in 2022, lies entirely within L.A. County. It stretches north from Long Beach and includes some communities in southeast L.A. County, including Lakewood, Downey and Huntington Park.
But under the new map expected to take effect with next year’s midterm elections, the district would lose those communities in southeast L.A. County and instead swing south, picking up at least portions of Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa in Orange County.
The current 42nd Congressional District includes 53% registered Democratic voters as well as 18% Republican voters and 23% no party preference or other. With next year’s changes, the district will include 40% registered Democratic voters, 30% Republican and 28% no party preference or other.
It’s not that the Orange County cities that will be folded into the 42nd Congressional District haven’t been represented by a Democrat before.
Their current congressmember, Rep. Dave Min of Irvine, is a Democrat. So was Katie Porter, who served before Min.
But as Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns puts it: Porter and Min were elected based on a congressional map drawn by an independent redistricting commission and under a nonpartisan system that California voters previously approved.
Yet that’s just one issue Burns has about Huntington Beach possibly being represented by Garcia under the new map. He’s also worried that Garcia’s ideas for the city won’t align with what residents truly want.
Over the summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats proposed a mid-decade redistricting effort to position California Democrats to pick up five additional House seats in the 2026 midterm elections as a counter to similar gerrymandering efforts by GOP-led states.
That effort led to voters adopting new, gerrymandered maps for California in a special election a few weeks ago. The maps are being challenged in court as unconstitutional by California Republicans and the U.S. Department of Justice.
In the meantime, Republicans in some of Orange County’s more conservative, lower-density communities continue to balk at the idea of being lumped into the same district as Long Beach, a much more liberal, urban community in L.A. County.
Garcia is well aware that his political views and the views of some of his potentially new constituents won’t always line up.
His strategy is to find areas of common interest upon which he’d advocate for, such as coastal preservation, investments in infrastructure and support for small local businesses.
“We’re not always going to agree on every issue, and that’s fine,” he said.
But, Garcia said, “I want Huntington Beach, Newport, Seal, communities on the coast to look back and say, ‘Damn, Robert Garcia is bringing us more federal resources to help our budgets than anyone we’ve ever had,’” he said.
Huntington Beach Mayor Pro Tem Casey McKeon, who will be sworn in as mayor next week, said many residents in the city remain skeptical about representation under the new congressional maps.
He did not want to speculate who would win the 42nd Congressional District race next year but said he’s willing to keep an open mind should Garcia be elected to represent Huntington Beach.
“It doesn’t matter who the representative is,” said McKeon. “We would expect our congressional representative to work on projects that affect Huntington Beach.”
For example, he hopes whoever is elected to represent the city after the midterm elections will advocate for federal funding for sand replenishment projects.
“It shouldn’t matter (the) political lines,” he said. “I hope to have a good relationship with our representative in Congress.”
Burns, the outgoing mayor of Huntington Beach, is wary that being lumped into the same congressional district as Long Beach will mean that voters there will overshadow those from smaller communities and likely elect someone with a more urban mindset.
Long Beach is the seventh most populous city in California, with some neighborhoods boasting mid-rise and high-rise apartments and condos. That sort of high-density living is a stark contrast to Huntington Beach, Burns said.
“Long Beach is quite different,” Burns said. “Is he (Garcia) going to represent us in a Huntington Beach manner, or does he have his own ideals of what he thinks Huntington Beach should be? We’re obviously more conservative than he has shown. Hopefully, he will be respectful of those values and help us live those values.”
Although Burns was an officer with the Long Beach Police Department when Garcia was mayor, it’s been a long time since the two have crossed paths, both men said.
“We have different political perspectives, but I respect his service as a Long Beach police officer,” Garcia said.
The congressmember also said that some of his college friends now live in Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, and he considers himself fairly familiar with what will be the new 42nd Congressional District.
In addition, he said he’s been to the homes of some Huntington Beach residents who invited him to meet with small business owners and community members to hear their perspectives.
Having served on the Long Beach City Council and as mayor there for eight years before being elected to Congress, Garcia said he understands the fiscal challenges local municipalities face and that basic quality-of-life issues like sidewalk maintenance still matter. He intends to advocate on such issues, he said.
Just don’t expect the congressmember to pull a 180 on his political stances, whether it’s about LGBTQ+ rights or other core values.
“If people are being attacked, if communities are being marginalized, it’s my place to speak up. I’m not going to shy from that,” he said.
Garcia said if he is reelected, he’d represent “some very wealthy communities,” yet he continues to believe billionaires and large corporations shouldn’t get tax breaks while average citizens struggle to pay their rent.
“I always vote what I believe is the right thing for the communities I represent, for our state and for what I believe in,” Garcia said.
At the same time, he said he respects the fact that not everyone shares his opinions. He’s spent his career working with people with differing views, he said, and expects that to continue even if he represents more conservative communities.
“I’ve worked with Republicans my whole life,” he said. “I’m actually not worried about it at all.”