Democrat Richard Pan, known nationally for spearheading the state’s push to eliminate religious exemptions for school vaccine requirements, defeated Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA) in California’s 6th Congressional District.
The Associated Press called the race for Pan at 2 a.m. With roughly 50% of the vote counted, Pan had secured 57.5% of the vote to Kiley’s 42.5%.
Kiley, a former Republican, represented a Sacramento-area district that was carved up during the state’s redistricting overhaul.
Pan, a pediatrician and former state lawmaker, is best known for writing some of California’s toughest vaccine mandates.
Pan first drew national attention in 2015 after sponsoring legislation that eliminated California’s religious exemption for school vaccine requirements. Four years later, he spearheaded another measure to tighten oversight of medical exemptions, arguing that abuses in the system threatened public health. The legislation passed despite fierce opposition from anti-vaccine activists, who packed legislative hearings and staged noisy protests at the California State Capitol.
The backlash followed Pan beyond Sacramento. During his years in public office, he was assaulted on a Sacramento street by a man who livestreamed the encounter on Facebook. He became the subject of racist online attacks and conspiracy theories and regularly received threats. Yet Pan remained unapologetic about his role in the vaccine debate, arguing that public officials must follow scientific evidence even when doing so carries political costs.
Pan said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recommendation to loosen those mandates pushed him to run for Congress.
Pan was born in New York and raised in Pittsburgh by parents who emigrated from Taiwan. He earned a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University in 1998 and moved to the Sacramento area to take a faculty position at the University of California, Davis.
Kiley, a former high school English teacher, had represented California’s 3rd District, a conservative-leaning area that was also the state’s most geographically diverse.
After the passage of Proposition 50, a ballot measure championed by outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) that allows the state to redraw its congressional districts to favor Democrats through 2030, the old 3rd District split into six factions. The new map targeted five Republicans, including Kiley. Instead of running in the 3rd, Kiley chose to run in the 6th District, which made his race far more competitive.
In March, Kiley changed his affiliation from Republican to “no party preference” or an independent, though he still caucuses with Republicans.
Both candidates used their debates and ads to tie their opponent’s records to a political party when addressing concerns about affordability, business, and energy costs.
Kiley blamed Pan for voting alongside Democrats in the state legislature, including a controversial vote to raise the state’s gas tax.
Pan painted Kiley as a puppet of President Donald Trump.