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California Rep Cancels Possible Texas Bid
in District Where 2024 OK Candidate Runs
Capitol Inside
December 4, 2025
A California congressman for the GOP could be an unintended victim of the Republican redistricting push in Texas after pulling the plug on tentative plans for a re-election race in a Dallas-area district where a candidate for the U.S. House in Oklahoma last year entered the ring on Thursday.
U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa - a Republican who's represented swaths of southern California for all but two of the past two dozen years - had been eyeing a bid for a new term in Congressional District 32 in Texas since voters in the Golden State approved a new map designed to give Democrats five more seats there. But Issa confirmed on Thursday in a statement to Fox News Digital that he's decided to forego a campaign that he'd contemplated in the Lone Star State and will seek to defend his home turf in Congressional District 48 in California instead at the polls in 2026.
Issa said that he'd faced a groundswell of support from Texas Republican lawmakers and voters for a bid here in the wake of Proposition 50's passage a month ago. Issa's district was one of five that California Democrats targeted on a map that Governor Gavin Newsom hatched to counter the GOP's congressional redistricting effort in Texas.
"I’m thrilled to set the record straight and here’s the truth: Texas House members and residents of that state did ask if I would consider running there following Gavin Newsom’s historically corrupt gerrymander," Issa said. "I appreciate the opportunity, but California is my home. I told them I’m going to stay in Congress, and I don’t need to go to Texas for that.
"I believe the people of Southern California in San Diego County and Riverside County who elected me so many times will, regardless of registration, consider my record in full and allow me to continue serving them," Issa added. "I can hold this seat, I’m not quitting on California, and neither should anyone else."
But Issa wouldn't have pondered a race in Texas if he really believed he could survive the Democrats' redistricting in the nation's largest state. Issa's decision to stay put might have been fueled to some degree by the fact that the new Texas congressional map remains stuck in legal limbo in the U.S. Supreme Court with the deadline for filing for spots on the 2026 primary ballots here on Monday.
Issa chose to stay and fight at home instead of fleeing to a state where a Democrat will be a prohibitive favorite in CD 32 if the nation's highest court upholds a federal appellate ruling that struck down the new U.S. House map and ordered the state to conduct the 2026 election with the current boundaries.
Three Republicans - Ryan Binkley of Dallas, Darrell Day of Arlington and Monty Montanez of Garland had filed to run in CD 32 in Texas by Thursday afternoon. But Paul Bondar of Rockwall announced today that he would be a candidate in the GOP primary election in CD 32 as well next year.
Bondar emerged as candidate for Congress in Oklahoma in 2024 when he sought without success to oust U.S. Rep. Tom Cole in the Republican primary election. Cole won the primary without the need for a runoff with almost 65 percent of the vote. Bondar finished second in a field of five with 26 percent after pouring millions of dollars of his own money into the contest.
The fight didn't end there for Bondar, who ended up suing Nexstar Media, Gannett and ABC News for $10 million for defamation based on reports that portrayed as a candidate who didn't live in Oklahoma and had connections to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Cole had needled Bondar for running for office in a state where the incumbent said he wasn't an actual resident.
“Can’t find his way around the district without a map,” Cole said of the challenger. “It’s not like I’m an unknown quantity. My family’s lived in this district 175 years on my mom’s side and 140 on my father’s side.”
But Bondar laid out his vision for the future in a statement that gives the impression that he's in the Lone Star State to stay.
"We need to be able to leave our doors unlocked at night again, know our wives are safe pumping gas, respect each other and restore America as the greatest country on earth," Bondar said.
"I want my daughter to marry a man who will always respect her, my son to have a love for his wife as deeply as I do for mine," Bondar added. "I want him to become the best football player in north Texas. I want all our kids to know freedom, prosperity, and to maintain their rights under the constitution. Eliminate the toxic wokeness and return to common sense."
Bondar played high school football with former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo in Burlington, Wisconsin. Bondar said Romo was the best man at his wedding.
Day has served as an Arlington City Council member, election judge and precinct chair for the GOP. Binkley ran for president in 2024 when he finished eighth in a field of nine with 0.11 percent of the vote in the Texas primary that Donald Trump won outright with 78 percent.
more to come ...
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