The June 2 primary in California’s 6th Congressional District is shaping up to be a showdown that could reshape how Sacramento responds to two issues hitting families hardest: what’s happening at grocery store checkouts and what’s happening at the border. Five major candidates are competing for a seat that just got redrawn—thanks to Proposition 50—to cover parts of Yolo, Sacramento, and Placer Counties, including Roseville, Rocklin, Citrus Heights, Orangevale, Fair Oaks, and parts of Sacramento and West Sacramento. Only the top two vote-getters move on to November’s general election, so this primary is genuinely consequential.
The split is striking. Congressman Kevin Kiley, running as No Party Preference (though he caucuses with Republicans), is leaning into his recent work on a bipartisan farm bill and tax relief. He’s betting that leaving more money in Californians’pockets and funding new water infrastructure for farmers will solve the food affordability crisis. Then there are four Democrats—Martha Guerrero (West Sacramento’s mayor), Thien Ho (Sacramento County district attorney and the man who brought the Golden State Killer to justice), Dr. Richard Pan (former state senator with a public health background), and Lauren Babb Tomlinson (chief public affairs officer at Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte)—who are largely united on the diagnosis but split on the remedy.
On food costs, there’s real philosophical daylight here. Pan, Ho, Guerrero, and Tomlinson all point to President Donald Trump’s tariffs as a direct tax on everyday working people, and they’re aligned on restoring cuts to SNAP benefits that were slashed under H.R.1. But Guerrero goes further, arguing that when low-income families lose purchasing power, entire neighborhoods feel it through reduced store traffic and rising prices for everyone. Tomlinson adds a tech-forward angle: she’s looking at a price accountability bill to prevent grocery stores from using AI to set higher prices in communities of color. The takeaway? If you’re struggling at the grocery store, these four want Washington to reverse course on tariffs and fix the safety net immediately.
The immigration divide is even sharper. Kiley wants reform—focus ICE on people with criminal records, require judicial warrants for home entry, block operations near schools. It’s a“rebuild trust”approach. But Guerrero wants to dismantle ICE entirely and replace it. Tomlinson goes further: abolish it and redistribute its functions to other agencies. Pan splits the difference: close ICE and create a new agency that actually follows the Constitution. And Ho, as the only immigrant and refugee running in this race, brings lived experience to it—he’s an expert on Fourth Amendment law and has personally rejected Trump administration requests to help with immigration raids. He told local authorities:“Hell no, not on my watch, because I will not allow county resources, whether they’re in my office or the county, to be allowed to use in illegal deportations.”
This isn’t abstract policy debate. These five candidates are offering Sacramento voters genuinely different visions for how to tackle the cost of living and enforcement at the border. Whether you think Kiley’s tax-and-infrastructure play will work, or whether you believe Ho’s constitutional expertise and hands-on refusal to cooperate with ICE matters more, the choice in June will tell you a lot about what Sacramento voters actually want from their next representative.
About the Author
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.
