FEDERAL: 24th Congressional District – 2026 Primary Election

Note: This post is “IN PROCESS” and will be periodically updated! (05/18/26)

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U.S. Representative – 24th Congressional District – Vote for (1)

Rep. Salud Carbajal (D) – Member of Congress ENDORSED

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RECOMMENDATION: YES, but we want to use this quote from KNOCK-LA’s endorsement of Steyer…

“It’s a strange position to find ourselves in, but remember: an elected official is a battlefield, not a general. We don’t count on elected leaders to simply take care of us out of the goodness of their souls — we have to engage with them, push them, and challenge them, even the ones we support, to accomplish our goals.”

Rep. Carbajal disappointed many of us with his support for the National Defense Authorization (NDAA), which prohibited the “military’s health-care system from providing gender-affirming care to children of U.S. service members…” It certainly was incongruous for a congressman who’s been endorsed by the likes of Equality California. We, his constituents, need to push him harder to walk a more progressive line, by calling his office regularly and engaging with his staff.

For this election, we need him to beat out the deceptively benign Bob Smith (R). With all his protestation that he has a Democrat for a wife, his endorsements tell a different story.

Sample of endorsements

CADEM
GOOD club
California Young Democrats
Santa Barbara Women's Political comm
sierra club
CA league of conservative voters
Planned parenthood
equality CA
Brady
UFW
Cause action fund
VoteVets
CA fed. of teachersCA Teachers association
NATIONAL UNION OF HEALTH WORKERSSEIU 721
international warehouse-socalCentral Coast Labor CouncilIBEW NATIONAL
UAW
Liana
Ventura Co. Professional Firefighters
Santa Barbara Independent

(Santa Barbara Independent) At ths moment of upheaval, we’d be insane not to send Carbajal back for another term in Congress. The Democrat has been representing Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo in Washington since 2017, having won his seat the same year Donald Trump first won the White House. In many regards, Carbajal, the son of Mexican immigrants who worked the fields of Oxnard, and Trump, who rode down his golden escalator to power by bashing immigrants as “drug mules and rapists,” have been shadowboxing ever since. 

With Trump now waging a quasi-jihad against California, we need Congressional representatives who will defend the Golden State. That is definitely Salud Cabajal. 

For most of his career, Carbajal has been a reach-across-the-aisle guy. More recently, he’s grown more openly pugilistic, telling Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to his face that he should resign. 

Theatrics aside, Carbajal has a genius for knowing where the money is. He brings home the bacon, and not just as a campaign fundraiser. Across his 10 years in office, Carbajal claims he secured $8 billion in federal funds for his district. Last month, he secured $6.4 million in federal funds to dredge Santa Barbara’s harbor after the federal government proposed cutting $4 million. Without annual dredging, no boats could get in or out of the harbor. By invoking national security — ironically one of Trump’s favorite rationales — Carbajal shook the dredging money loose. 

During the Biden administration, Carbajal managed to win passage of a low-cost spending bill to make it easier for law enforcement officials to take guns away from individuals showing intense emotional volatility. A modest bill, perhaps, but it is the only bill that Congress passed in more than 30 years that addresses gun violence. Nobody except Carbajal has come close to getting anything passed. Impressive, yet still very depressing.

One major accomplishment for Carbajal was a wind farm in federal waters off Morro Bay. Carbajal painstakingly put the pieces together, working with dueling stakeholders. A first step, but a giant one. Three weeks ago, Trump killed those leases. He ordered the money returned, but only if the funds were used to pursue oil, natural gas, or coal.

We have our differences with Carbajal, of course. We cringed when Carbajal followed the party line and shrugged off President Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump as “a sluggish night.”

We certainly wished Carbajal had shown more moral outrage as Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack with a campaign of wholesale slaughter against Gaza.

But despite these differences, we believe strongly that Salud Cabajal is a conscientious and effective representative in Congress. He deserves our support. We urge a vote for Salud Carbajal. 

Sarah Bacon (D) – Elected Student Officer

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RECOMMENDATION: NO. Love her concepts, not ready for the show.

Sample of endorsements

Helena Pascarella (Peace and Freedom) – Teacher/Caregiver

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RECOMMENDATION: NO. As always, we agree with Helen’s policies, but we think we said this last time – we need more than just promises to follow the progressive playbook. We’d like to see her take on a LOCAL ELECTED POSITION before making a jump to Congress. Being an elected official is tough and nothing in her background indicates that she’s prepared for that. Let us see how she handles this inherently stressful type of position and her ability to think on her feer through sometimes hostile interactions with the public first. Salud spent 12 years as a member of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors before making the leap. Sorry, but not risking splitting the vote for Republican candidate, Bob Smith, to take this office.

Bob Smith (R) – Defense Systems Engineer

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RECOMMENDATION: NO. As we said up in Salud’s section, we believe that Bob is not what he wants you to think he is, a genial middle-of-the-road-guy, able to kibbitz without issue with his Democrat wife. His collection of endorsements indicates something else entirely, and turning him loose into an office with political power, where he doesn’t have to temper himself, would be a mistake.

3-stars for Mr. “Nothing-to-see-here” Smith. Check out the questionnaire for this in the yellow box below.

He is married to a Democrat, which we can only assume is the reason that his campaign materials neatly avoid all the hot-button dogwhistles of his chosen MAGA tribe, especially the stuff that’s earning him a “Reform California” endorsement. For those of us who grew up in mixed-political homes, we know two things:

  • Our parents, like most married couples, had plenty of other stuff to talk about.
  • They never missed an election to cancel out each other’s vote.

We also know that if elected, he will add his votes to the GOP’s toxic campaign to overthrow democracy through the dictates of Project 2025.

ELECTION FORUM QUESETIONNAIRE AND ASSOCIATED PLEDGES

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Election Forum: Candidate Endorsement Questionnaire for Congress

Dear Candidate,

Congratulations on your decision to run for office.

For over 20 years, the ElectionForum.org has conducted California election forums where we make specific candidate recommendations.

Last election cycle we had about 1 million voters following our endorsements, many in your district.

Besides conducting a dozen live Election Forums and several webinars giving endorsements, we will be posting our endorsements of candidates on our four websites, emailing and publicizing our recommendations to several hundred thousand California voters.

In addition, our recommendations are also broadcast on radio stations.

In your office we will either say:

  • Endorsed…Giving you a 1 to 5 star rating
  • Not endorsed
  • Refused to disclose position

I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully giving you our endorsement.

  1. What is your name and what office are you running for?
  2. What is the proper role of the federal government in the economy?
  3. What is your view on abortion?
  4. Should the federal government fund Planned Parenthood?
  5. How would you reduce the federal deficit?
  6. Do you support Obamacare? Should it be repealed or kept?
  7. Do Americans pay too much, too little or just the right amount on Federal Taxes? What would you do about it?
  8. What federal politician do you admire most and why?
  9. Should the minimum wage be raised?
  10. Should the federal government do anything to support the value of the dollar on the world market? Why or why not? Should we modify any of our free trade agreements? Why or why not? Should we seek more free trade agreements?
  11. Have you signed a “no new tax” pledge? Why or why not?
  12. Have you signed the Manhattan Declaration or the Families First pledge? Why or why not? You can view the Manhattan Declaration here. You can view the Families First pledge here.
  13. Do you believe in absolute truth? Why or why not? If you believe in absolute truth, what is the source of absolute truth? If you do not believe in absolute truth, how do you determine what is true?

MANHATTAN DECLARATION:

Since Sam got 5 stars, we’re guessing he signed this rant against abortion and the civil rights of marriage LGBTQ+ to marry.

FAMILIES FIRST PLEDGE

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