California's 8th congressional district


California's 8th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of California.
Paul Cook, a Republican from Yucca Valley, has represented the district since January 2013.
Currently, the 8th district encompasses most of the eastern desert regions of the state. It stretches from Mono Lake to Twentynine Palms. It consists of Inyo and Mono counties plus most of the land in San Bernardino County. It is the largest and thus the most thinly-populated congressional district in California. The largest city in the district is Victorville.
Prior to redistricting by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission of 2011, the 8th district was in San Francisco. The new district lines went into effect for the June 2012 elections.

Competitiveness

Before the 2011 redistricting, the 8th district was a Democratic stronghold. It gave John Kerry his best performance in California in 2004, backing the Democrat with 84.2% of the vote. Barack Obama continued on this trend in 2008 when he received 85.22% of the vote in the district while John McCain received 12.38%.
The new 8th district lies in a politically conservative region of the state with a "Strongly Republican" Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+10. The Cook Political Report ranks it the 87th most Republican-leaning congressional district in the United States.
In the 2012 election, the first after the state's adoption of top-two primaries, the 8th district was one of only two in California where two Republicans faced each other in a runoff election. In 2018, it was the only such California district.

Election results from statewide races

List of members representing the district

Election results

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