Apparently, the fastest way to radicalize a teenager is to make him trek through his own high school in search of functioning plumbing. Whereas most teens would gripe, graduate and never look back, Mike McGuire ran for the school board. He was 19.
“I’ll never forget sitting in my ag science class. I was in [Future Farmers of America], and we had a leaky roof. The heat didn’t work. You had to hightail it across campus to go use a working bathroom, and it was unacceptable,” McGuire says.
During a recent “Civics 101” interview on The Drive 95.5 FM, the state senator and Democratic candidate for California’s 1st Congressional District traced his public service back to that decidedly unglamorous grievance. He knocked on every door three times, he notes, then helped develop and pass an initiative to rebuild the high school and middle school.
There’s something reassuring about a political awakening that begins with deferred maintenance. Democracy has plenty of people willing to discuss its foundations, but someone should check the roof.
Raised by his single mother and grandmother on a small Sonoma County ranch, McGuire began working full time at 16. His campaign biography credits his grandmother with instilling an ethic of hard work, cooperation and persistence.
His subsequent résumé includes the school board, city council and Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Elected to the state Senate in 2014, he eventually served as its president pro tempore.
He faces Republican James Gallagher in the Nov. 3 election, a contest that asks whether his record of local problem-solving can translate into support across a sprawling Northern California district with plenty of practical problems to solve.
At home in Sonoma County, McGuire and his wife, Erika, are raising their son, Connor (described as a “human tornado”), alongside an elderly pug and “bevy of chickens,” according to his campaign site.
The domestic details matter because his campaign’s central preoccupation is with what it costs to maintain a life in our area. From healthcare and housing to groceries and childcare—these issues feel more pressing than ever. His proposed federal agenda includes Medicare for All, tuition-free community college, expanded childcare and stronger wildfire protection. He wants Democrats to challenge the Trump administration aggressively while giving voters a concrete account of what they intend to accomplish.
“No American should go bankrupt because of unpaid medical bills,” says McGuire.
For all the partisan heat, his most telling example concerns Trinity County, a conservative corner of his Senate district. McGuire describes securing support for school improvements, emergency evacuation facilities and firefighting equipment in a community where electoral affection has been, ahem, elusive.
“But guess what? I show up, I listen, and I deliver,” he states.
Such is McGuire’s stated stance with constituents who may not vote for him—he still intends to show up to address their needs.
Asked what gives him hope, McGuire returns to the neighbors who arrive when disaster strikes, the volunteer firefighters and local officials who get there first. Beneath the campaign’s combativeness is an idea of service that remains stubbornly local, even as his ambitions extend to Washington.
“I’m a big believer that the highest calling in life is to help people,” he says.
