After redistricting, California's 1st Congressional District in the northeast corner of the state now extends farther south to include Sutter, Colusa, and Glenn counties. The race to represent that area is between the incumbent, a longtime Republican politician, and a Democrat running for office for the first time.Since 2012, voters in the area have elected a Republican, specifically Doug LaMalfa, a fourth-generation rice farmer who is now running for his sixth term in Congress."I've lived all my years just within a few miles of where we live right now, and my opposition moved up here from L.A. to take up residence here to come make a narrative about me being somebody who I'm not," said LaMalfa, R-Richvale.His opposition is newcomer Max Steiner, an Army combat veteran who did two years in Iraq. Steiner grew up in Sacramento, moved around as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, then most recently, moved to Chico from Los Angeles.He is running for office for the first time as a self-described "moderate Democrat."| Not caught up on what's going to be on your ballot? Click here for our voter guide, or watch the video below"Jan. 6 convinced me to, one: Register as a Democrat, and two: Look at running for Congress. My opponent, LaMalfa, had previously spread lies about the election and then he voted against certifying and I thought that was just completely uncalled for," Steiner said.LaMalfa joined more than 100 Republicans in voting against certifying the presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania.However, he said he has not spread lies and does not believe the election was "stolen.""No, but I always think it's always appropriate to be able to ask questions about the way an election would be carried out," LaMalfa said.As far as his opponent's concern over what happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the Congressman said, "Making a whole campaign about Jan. 6 is kind of like the farce that the Jan. 6 Commission is anyway because our country — we're actually a Republic, not a Democracy — wasn't going to topple over what happened that day because our form of government and the people elected to it are much stronger than what a mob might do for six hours on one day."When it comes to policy, LaMalfa said, "We've got to get back to the basics. Store water, grow our crops, harvest timber, and manage our forests so we don't burn down another million acres like we did last year in the Dixie Fire and lose our small towns."Steiner, whose brother lost his house in the 2018 Carr Fire that burned in Shasta and Trinity counties, also talked about wildfires. "We have a changing forest, and we're going to have to do aggressive thinning," Steiner said. "We're gonna have to reintroduce prescribed fire appropriately, and we're going to have to really fund the Forest Service to do both of these things and a lot of that means restarting the timber industry. We had a pendulum swing from clearcutting to no cutting and we need sustainable forest management in the middle."On the issue of water, Steiner said building more dams is the answer."This is a storage problem. With climate change, we're gonna have longer droughts. That means we need to store more water but with climate change, we're also going to have more rain and that means we have increased flood risk. You don't flood when you have a heavy snowfall in the Sierra, right? You flood when you have heavy snowfall followed by rain," Steiner said. "The only way to prevent flooding is through building dam construction."LaMalfa also spoke on the topic of water."We need to continue to make the effort happen on adding Sites Reservoir out on the west side of the valley, so we have additional water storage, possible raise of Shasta Dam. Water is so much more critical. If we indeed have less snowpack and more rain, then we have to be able to capture the rain when it happens," LaMalfa said.Given the district's recent history of going Republican, Steiner admitted that this is an uphill battle for him."This is a district that Democrats can win. We just need to run a candidate that can win that kind of district. That means running a moderate with a good record that can convince those Independent voters and moderate Republicans that, 'Hey, it's time for a change,'" Seiner said.Steiner explained why he believes he is the better candidate for the job."I think I care more. I'm going to fight harder, and I believe in the principles of America more than my opponent," Steiner said."Well, I think people know and understand what my track record is on the issues that are important to Northern California," LaMalfa said.The U.S. House seat is now 1 of 52 in California. For the first time, the state lost one seat after the 2020 Census data showed population growth slowed in California.