Lauren Babb Tomlinson is now in the race for California’s 6th Congressional District, where she will face six other candidates in the top-two primary on June 2, 2026. Early voting began 29 days before that primary, putting the newly drawn seat and its crowded field in front of voters now.

The contest exists because California’s 6th was redrawn after Proposition 50 passed on November 4, 2025. Tomlinson is running against four other Democrats and another Republican in a district that is no longer the one voters knew before the redraw.

That matters because the seat now includes a sitting House member, Kevin Kiley, who is running there even as he is described as claiming he switched from Republican to independent. The district’s current representative, Ami Bera, is also running in California’s 3rd Congressional District, which leaves the 6th as a race defined by shifting lines and changing labels as much as by the candidates themselves.

Tomlinson enters with a long public affairs résumé and a stack of endorsements that make her the best-known Democrat in the field on paper. She currently serves as chief public affairs officer for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, and her background also includes work for Planned Parenthood Northern California, TBWB Strategies, the California Department of Developmental Sciences, and a year-long stretch as a community organizer. She has a bachelor’s degree in American government from American University and a master’s in political management from George Washington University.

Her allies include Emily’s List, Higher Heights, Planned Parenthood, End Citizens United and CBCPAC, along with Reps. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Jasmine Crockett and Lateefah Simon. Tomlinson has also written legislation at the state and local level and says she created a multi-million-dollar grant program after Covid, a record she is likely to lean on as she tries to separate herself from a field that already includes a current member of Congress.

The friction in this race is that the district is being treated like a two-party battle even as its lines and labels have been scrambled. Kiley is running in the 6th while describing himself as independent, but the field Tomlinson faces still breaks down as Democrats on one side and a Republican on the other, a reminder that ballot language and political identity are not always telling the same story.

The first real test comes on June 2, when voters decide which two candidates advance. For Tomlinson, the question is not whether she has a campaign with money, endorsements and a public-health profile. It is whether that mix is enough to finish in the top two in a district that has only just been redrawn and is already drawing in one of California’s most visible congressional names.