The powerful Democrat trying to win over California’s rural voters

Mike McGuire courts red territory with town halls and a populist pitch on jobs, healthcare and wildfire costsQuincy, population 1,600, is not exactly the sort of place you regularly run into California’s most powerful Democratic lawmakers. Nestled deep in the Sierra Nevada, the forested town is in a rural and reliably red county that – like nearly all of far northern California – has sent Republicans to Congress for nearly half a century.But on a Tuesday night in mid-April, Mike McGuire, a three-term state lawmaker who previously led California’s senate, was inside a local veterans hall rallying a crowd of some 40 people with the verve of a baptist preacher. Continue reading…

Mike McGuire courts red territory with town halls and a populist pitch on jobs, healthcare and wildfire costsQuincy, population 1,600, is not exactly the sort of place you regularly run into California’s most powerful Democratic lawmakers. Nestled deep in the Sierra Nevada, the forested town is in a rural and reliably red county that –…

Mike McGuire courts red territory with town halls and a populist pitch on jobs, healthcare and wildfire costsQuincy, population 1,600, is not exactly the sort of place you regularly run into California’s most powerful Democratic lawmakers. Nestled deep in the Sierra Nevada, the forested town is in a rural and reliably red county that – like nearly all of far northern California – has sent Republicans to Congress for nearly half a century.But on a Tuesday night in mid-April, Mike McGuire, a three-term state lawmaker…