# Member of the State Assembly, District 31 Compare records and positions simply between Jim Polsgrove or Annalisa Perea for Member of the State Assembly, District 31 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat in the California State Assembly (2-year term). - Jurisdiction: California Legislature - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/assembly-31 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 24, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 97 out of 100 (Very strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Jim Polsgrove** — Retired Engineering Technician · Republican - **Annalisa Perea** — City Councilmember/Mother · Democratic This is an open seat. Democrat Annalisa Perea led the June 2 primary with 44.6% and Republican Jim Polsgrove took 34.4%. The district covers Fresno and its immediate surroundings. The winner holds one of 80 Assembly seats for a two-year term, inside a 12-year lifetime cap on service in Sacramento. An Assemblymember authors bills, sits on the policy committees that decide which bills advance, and argues for the district's share of the annual state budget. Because this seat is open, whoever wins starts without seniority and builds committee standing from scratch. Neither candidate has held state office, so there is no legislative record on either side. The gap that does exist is one of resources: one campaign has raised roughly twenty-six times what the other has. Weigh how much that difference reflects assembled support in the district versus access to the funding networks that back Central Valley campaigns. ## Annalisa Perea Annalisa Perea grew up in Fresno, studied city and regional planning at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and worked as an urban planner before being appointed to the Fresno City Council in December 2022; she was elected council vice president in 2023 and council president in 2024 (fresno.gov). As a planner and councilmember she has focused on parks, walkability, crime reduction and affordable housing (fresno.gov). As council president she described her approach as "a three-legged stool" of public safety, housing and economic development (fresno.gov). She helped the council declare a housing and homelessness emergency, championed the city's Sidewalk Vending Ordinance, and in 2024 helped negotiate a tax-sharing agreement with Fresno County that the city credits with unlocking new economic development funding (fresno.gov). She promises to carry those priorities to the Assembly — safer neighborhoods, expanded housing and job creation for the Central Valley — along with the government transparency and support for working families that have marked her council tenure (fresno.gov). **Strengths:** She has a specific council record — a housing emergency declaration, a citywide vending ordinance and a city-county tax-sharing deal — not just a title. **Trade-offs:** She has not served in the Legislature, so how her city-level record would translate to Sacramento is untested. **Keep in mind:** She led a three-way June primary without a majority, so her November result depends partly on where the third candidate's supporters go. ## Jim Polsgrove Jim Polsgrove, a retired engineering technician, is the Republican candidate in this Fresno-area district. GV Wire described his campaign as "bare-bones," without the paid political infrastructure his opponent's campaign has (GV Wire). He has not served in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress. No campaign website or news coverage of his motivations for running could be located. What is documented is his showing in the June primary, where he took 34.4% of the vote against a divided Democratic field (GV Wire). His campaign has not published a platform that could be located, so his priorities for the seat are not documented here. **Strengths:** He took over a third of the June vote against a well-funded opponent, on what GV Wire called a bare-bones campaign with no paid staff. **Trade-offs:** He has no record in any office, and no documented platform beyond his ballot designation and primary results. **Keep in mind:** Coverage of this race focused on the crowded Democratic primary; what can be documented about Polsgrove comes from vote totals, not a stated platform. ## Record in office This is an open seat: no candidate on the November ballot currently serves in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress, so there is no legislative record to compare here. These records cover only those offices. ## Financial info - **Jim Polsgrove** - Primary: $32,440 raised (Small donors: $340; Individuals: $7,100; Self-funding: $25,000) - November: No itemized funding reported yet. - **Annalisa Perea** - Primary: $839,319 raised (Small donors: $2,177; Individuals: $164,826; PACs & committees: $458,431; Businesses & other orgs: $209,850) - November: $37,600 raised (Individuals: $2,600; PACs & committees: $28,100; Businesses & other orgs: $6,900) Figures are CA Form 460 filings through June 30, 2026 by committees controlled by each candidate, and can include transfers from a candidate's earlier committees. Semi-annual reports covering January–June 2026 were due July 31, 2026, so some totals lag a period behind. Per the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access raw data export, retrieved 2026-09-21. Jim Polsgrove has no itemized contributions dated after the June 2, 2026 primary reported to Cal-Access yet. Total is itemized (Schedule A) contributions and self-funding loans dated after the June 2, 2026 primary, through June 30, 2026 — small-dollar unitemized (under $100) contributions aren't independently dated in Cal-Access's raw export, so they aren't reflected here and this may undercount true small-donor activity since the primary. This also doesn't include money reported only on 24-hour late-contribution reports (Form 497) that haven't yet appeared in a periodic Form 460 filing. Per the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access raw data export, retrieved 2026-08-30. ## Sources 1. [CA Secretary of State — Statement of Vote, June 2, 2026 primary (certified 2026-07-10)](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/primary-election-june-2-2026/statement-vote) 2. [Ballotpedia — June 2026 California primary](https://ballotpedia.org) 3. [City of Fresno — Council District 1, Annalisa Perea biography and record (career, council priorities and record)](https://www.fresno.gov/citycouncil/district-1/) 4. [GV Wire — Perea Vanquishes Dem Rival, Will Face GOP's Polsgrove in Runoff (used for Polsgrove's bare-bones campaign description)](https://gvwire.com/2026/06/03/perea-vanquishes-dem-rival-will-face-gops-polsgrove-in-runoff/) 5. [Cal-Access raw data export — California Secretary of State](https://www.sos.ca.gov/campaign-lobbying/helpful-resources/raw-data-campaign-finance-and-lobbying-activity) ## The rest of the ballot Member of the State Assembly, District 31 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Member of the State Assembly, District 31 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/assembly-31 (sources last retrieved September 24, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.