A day after California voters shrunk the number of safe Republican House seats through a Democratic gerrymander, two endangered incumbents said they would square off against each other in a high-stakes bid for political survival next year.
Representative Ken Calvert, a Riverside County Republican whose 41st Congressional District was carved up and appended to several neighboring districts, said on Wednesday that he would run for the new incarnation of the 40th District, one of the few friendly territories left for Republicans in California.
He made no mention of the fact that the district was already occupied.
Representative Young Kim, an Orange County Republican, is the current 40th District incumbent, and she said on Wednesday that she would not cede her favorable turf without a fight. The Democratic redraw of congressional maps actually made her district safer for Republicans than it was before — which also made it an attractive life raft.
That means two veteran G.O.P. incumbents will vie for one House seat in a clash that underscores how dire the stakes have become for Republicans in California. It also shows how the redistricting war has sent incumbents scrambling in the middle of the decade, in a way that unlucky members usually only do after a new census….