Kevin Kiley

Kevin Patrick Kiley (born January 30, 1985) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for California's 3rd congressional district since 2023. Previously, Kiley represented the 6th district in the California State Assembly from 2016 to 2022, and was an unsuccessful candidate to replace California governor Gavin Newsom in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election.

Kiley was first elected to Congress in 2022 as a Republican. In 2026, Kiley announced he was leaving the party to become an independent, citing frustration with partisanship, and that he would run for re-election as an independent in California's 6th congressional district.

Early life, education, and early career Kiley grew up in the Sacramento area, where his father was a physician and his mother was a special education teacher. He graduated from Granite Bay High School.

Kiley graduated with an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 2007. Upon graduation, he joined Teach for America, teaching for two years at Manual Arts High School while earning his teaching credentials at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. and clerked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He returned to California to join the law firm Irell & Manella, where he helped prepare an intellectual property theft case for T-Mobile against Chinese technology company Huawei that was the basis for a federal criminal investigation. In 2018, Kiley authored legislation to make it easier for students to transfer school districts.

After winning a second term in the State Assembly, Kiley ran for the State Senate in California's 1st District. He finished second in the primary, but lost the runoff to fellow Assemblyman Brian Dahle. Soon after the start of the new legislative session, Kiley introduced legislation to close for private use a controversial DMV office that catered exclusively to state legislators and staff. In a statement to The Sacramento Bee, Kiley said: "This is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people, not an oligarchy where a gilded political class enjoys privileges that aren’t available to the people that we represent."

Kiley has said climate change is real, but opposed Governor Gavin Newsom's executive orders requiring all new vehicles sold in California to be zero emission by 2035 and banning oil-drilling by 2045. During a candidate interview in a 2021 California state race, Kiley declined to answer questions about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Kiley has said his position is to "stay out of national politics altogether", and that "national politics is a distraction that is used frankly by those in power in Sacramento [as] kind of a smokescreen for their own failures."

United States Senate vacancies In 2020, Kiley urged passage of his bill that would require the potential successor of then-candidate for vice president and Senator Kamala Harris to be elected by California's voters and not appointed by the governor; he reiterated that view during the 2021 gubernatorial recall campaign by pledging to allow voters to pick a replacement for Senator Dianne Feinstein if he became governor and her seat became vacant. Kiley later flagged a constitutional issue with Newsom's appointment of Alex Padilla to replace Harris and Padilla's expected service until January 2023, since the U.S. Constitution stipulates that such appointees serve "until the people fill the vacancies by election". Newsom signed the bill, which meant California's voters had to vote simultaneously for both the lame-duck Senate seat and the next full Senate term.

2021 California gubernatorial recall election

Kiley published a book in January 2021 titled Recall Gavin Newsom: The Case Against America's Most Corrupt Governor.

On July 6, 2021, Kiley announced his candidacy for governor of California in the 2021 recall election. According to the New York Times, he was one of the "more moderate Republican recall candidates," while the Los Angeles Times deemed him and John Cox the "more traditional conservatives" in the election.

Kiley indicated his support for school choice during the campaign and said teachers' unions in the state were too powerful (with the California Teachers Association having been Newsom's top donor), to students' detriment.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2022

On December 29, 2021, Kiley announced he would run for the U.S. House in 2022 in California's newly redrawn 3rd congressional district, which includes all or parts of Inyo, Sacramento, Mono, Alpine, El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Sierra, Yuba, and Plumas counties.

2024

Kiley was re-elected in 2024, defeating Democratic candidate Jessica Morse 46,179 votes.

2026

Following a Democratic Party-friendly 2025 redistricting process, Later, on March 6, Kiley filed for re-election as an independent. He will face Democrat Richard Pan in the general election in November.

Tenure Kiley supports ending California High-Speed Rail. He authored legislation to stop federal funding for the project. In February 2026, he introduced legislation to prevent states from retroactively taxing the assets of former residents, targeting a central provision of the 2026 California billionaire tax initiative.

On March 9, 2026, Kiley formally changed his party affiliation from Republican to independent, adding that he would remain a member of the House Republican Conference. Committee on Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education (Chair) Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment

Caucus memberships Republican Study Committee Climate Solutions Caucus Congressional Western Caucus

Personal life Kiley married Chelsee Gardner, a marketing director and former children's pastor, on December 30, 2023, in Pioneer Church in Auburn, California.

Kiley is a non-denominational Christian.

Electoral history + Year Office Party Primary General Result Swing . Total % . Total % . 2016 State Assembly 6th Republican 22,019 16.34% 2nd 149,415 64.59% 1st Hold 2018 80,843 61.34% 1st 131,284 58.02% 1st Hold 2019 State Senate 1st 54,290 27.88% 2nd 72,169 46.06% 2nd Hold 2020 State Assembly 6th 104,412 58.02% 1st 178,559 58.96% 1st Hold 2021 Governor 255,490 3.47% 6th Hold 2022 U.S. House 3rd 93,552 39.69% 1st 181,438 53.65% 1st Gain 2024137,39755.89%1st234,24655.47%1stHold 2026 6thIndependent47,16524.28%1st Source: Secretary of State of California Statewide Election Results

Works Kevin Kiley (2021). Recall Gavin Newsom: The Case Against America's Most Corrupt Governor. .