By Daniel Trotta
HUNTINGTON BEACH, California, May 29 (Reuters) - Huntington Beach, the right-leaning California city that banned the Pride flag from City Hall and elected a city council of MAGA supporters, is heavily favored to get a new Democratic congressman who is gay, progressive and an outspoken critic of U.S. President Donald Trump.
It's a result of redrawing congressional districts. A flurry of redistricting was touched off when Trump pushed states, starting with Texas, to come up with voting
maps favorable to his Republican Party. With control of the U.S. House of Representatives at stake in November's elections, heavily Democratic California countered the Texas redistricting, with voters approving a plan that targets five Republican seats.
"So, two wrongs make a right?" Huntington Beach City Councilman Pat Burns said from his council office, where a bust of Trump that he once placed on the dais at city council meetings now sits on his desk. "It's just California ugly-ass politics, and they are all about their agenda and not about the people. They don't care about the people of California one bit."
Huntington Beach counts itself among the cities and towns in roughly a dozen U.S. states caught up in the redistricting battle, with political parties reconfiguring voting maps to their advantage in what is known as gerrymandering.
As a result, voters can suddenly find themselves in a new district - with representation that they say fails to reflect their interests.
A conservative enclave in mostly liberal Southern California, Huntington Beach has set itself on a collision course with liberals in the Trump era, defying Democrats in the state capital on issues such as voter identification and housing density. Officially nicknamed Surf City USA, it reflects the individualist and independence-minded aspects of surf culture, not the cliché of laid-back free spirits.
At the moment, Huntington Beach, which banned the rainbow Pride flag and other nongovernmental banners from city property after a local voter referendum in 2024, is represented in the House by Representative Dave Min, a Democrat seen as moderate and pragmatic.
Redistricting, however, means that after the November elections the city will most likely be represented by the more progressive Robert Garcia, a 48-year-old gay immigrant, who said in an interview he has "been dealing with homophobia my whole life."
A two-term Democratic U.S. representative, Garcia comes from Long Beach, a city of 450,000 people across the Los Angeles County line from Huntington Beach. Once in different districts, Long Beach and Huntington Beach have been coupled together into one district through gerrymandering and will share a representative in the House.
Born in Peru, Garcia came to the U.S. as a child. A former mayor of Long Beach, he was elected to Congress in 2022 and won his 2024 re-election by 36 percentage points. He is heavily favored to finish first in the primary election on June 2 that will test the new districts for the first time, and to prevail in the November general election.
Garcia, a Trump critic, is the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, the congressional watchdog over the executive branch. His stands on issues including immigration, climate and healthcare clash with the MAGA agenda.
"I've represented people I don't agree with on everything, my entire time as mayor, and currently as a member of Congress," Garcia said. "That's OK. That's America."
'RULE BY FIAT'
Domnic McGee, a Huntington Beach Planning Commission member and outspoken conservative, sees redistricting as part of a broader effort by Democrats to consolidate power in California and advance policies he opposes. McGee said he plans to “fight for traditional American values” and resist "overreach” by the left.
"The Democrats now with redistricting are set to take even more power in California," McGee said. "They want to rule by fiat."
Janet Jacobs, who attended a recent city council meeting, is also firmly in the "Make America Great Again" camp.
"Trump is doing a hell of a job, and God is on his side," said Jacobs, who wore a red baseball cap emblazoned with "Make Huntington Beach Great Again" and "7-0" on the side, extolling the 7-0 MAGA majority on the council.
Still, Garcia predicts cooperation rather than confrontation.
"I expect actually there's going to be a lot of partnerships with the cities, especially communities like Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. While they might have a more conservative council, at the end of the day, they want the same thing that communities in Long Beach want," Garcia told Reuters.
Garcia flagged one issue he said unites the district: offshore oil drilling. "Whether you're in Huntington Beach or Newport Beach or Seal Beach, that is a huge concern to everybody here," Garcia said. He said he would be "much more engaged on that issue" given the Trump administration's moves toward reopening California's coast to oil production.
Huntington Beach Mayor Casey McKeon also said he expects any representative to do the job professionally. He cited previous Representative Michelle Steel, a Republican who worked with a then-liberal council on beach sand replacement.
"She still did what was right for Huntington Beach," McKeon said. "She didn't let politics get in the way of that."
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Huntington Beach; editing by Donna Bryson and Cynthia Osterman)
