‘I can hold this seat’: After Trump meeting, Issa drops idea of Texas move, will seek re-election in San Diego County

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa is no longer considering leaving San Diego County to run for Congress in Texas, he said Thursday, capping days of speculation about the future of the longest-serving member of the county’s congressional delegation.

The Republican said that he would run for re-election in California after all, following a Wednesday meeting with President Donald Trump.

“I think I can hold this seat in spite of the governor’s gerrymandering, and my intention is to stay right where I am, and more importantly help the whole team,” he told San Diego TV station KUSI in an interview.

Issa’s prospects for winning his current seat have dimmed now that the district is gerrymandered to favor Democrats following voters’ recent passage of a redistricting ballot measure, Proposition 50.

“I’m not quitting on California, and neither should anyone else,” he said in a separate statement.

On Wednesday, following reports that he was considering running in Texas, Issa acknowledged in an interview with a Dallas radio station that he had been approached about running in a suburban Dallas district redrawn by Texas Republicans in the party’s favor.

In that interview, Issa said his Republican colleagues had characterized his chances of winning in his current East San Diego County seat as “nearly impossible.”

Before Proposition 50, Issa’s district encompassed most of San Diego County’s backcountry, one of the few strongholds of conservative voters left in California. But under new maps, the district will grab the cities of San Marcos and Vista and reach up to include Palm Springs in Riverside County.

Democrats hold a 4-point registration advantage in the new district.

“I’m going to stay in Congress, but I don’t need to go to Texas for that,” Issa said on KUSI. “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.”

Uncertainty about Issa’s future reflects the ongoing impact of the national battle over redistricting.

In California, four other Republicans now face tougher re-election bids because of Proposition 50.

They include Rep. Ken Calvert in Riverside County, Rep. David Valadao in the Central Valley, Rep. Doug LaMalfa in Northern California and Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose district stretches from the Sacramento suburbs through a vast swath of the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Democrats posed the new maps to voters as a way to offset similar efforts in Republican-controlled states.

Republican-led redistricting has already created more GOP-leaning seats in Texas, Ohio, Missouri, Utah and North Carolina as Trump pushes such efforts.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ new maps, rejecting a lower-court ruling that the map likely discriminates on the basis of race.

In Issa’s seat, the 48th Congressional District, a crowded field of Democrats are running to challenge him in next year’s midterms.

Current candidates include San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, Vista City Councilmember Corinna Contreras, Riverside County businessman Brandon Riker and former congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar, who lost to Issa in 2020.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.