# Member of the State Assembly, District 37 Compare records and positions simply between Gregg Hart or Sari Domingues for Member of the State Assembly, District 37 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-37 - 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: 99 out of 100 (Very strong), across 8 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Gregg Hart** — State Assemblymember · Democratic · Incumbent - **Sari Domingues** — Retired Business Analyst · Republican Assemblymember Gregg Hart took 62.5% of the June 2 vote and Republican Sari Domingues took 37.5%; they were the only two candidates on the primary ballot. The district covers Santa Barbara and the surrounding coast. 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. Committee assignment is where most of the leverage sits, and it is handed out by the majority's leadership. The incumbent authored 32 bills and had 5 signed into law, a lower conversion rate than most of his colleagues on this ballot — worth weighing alongside the fact that he faces a challenger with almost no campaign at all. This district's real question is what it is getting from a safe seat, not who will hold it. ## Gregg Hart Gregg Hart, a Santa Barbara native, has spent more than 30 years in local public service. He was a planning commissioner, a Santa Barbara City Council member, a California Coastal Commissioner and a Santa Barbara County supervisor before he was elected to the Assembly in 2022 (assembly website). Earlier in his career he was a legislative aide to former Assemblymember Jack O'Connell and later helped run the county's Traffic Solutions transportation program. For more than twenty years he also owned and operated a Santa Barbara preschool (assembly website). Hart's highest-profile bill this session grew out of a Santa Barbara County grand jury finding that county sheriffs had a conflict of interest investigating deaths in their own jails. His Assembly Bill 1108, the FACTS Act, requires an independent medical examiner to investigate in-custody deaths instead. Governor Newsom signed it into law in October 2025 (Santa Barbara Independent). Hart said the change "should provide some small solace to family members experiencing grief" by removing jailers from investigating deaths that may trace back to their own oversight (Santa Barbara Independent). Hart's official priorities include protecting the Central Coast's economy and coastline. He applauded Attorney General Rob Bonta's lawsuit challenging a federal attempt to let Sable Offshore restart the pipelines tied to the 2015 Refugio oil spill (assembly website). He also lists expanded health care access, wildfire and disaster preparedness, and support for local nonprofits among his ongoing priorities (assembly website). **Strengths:** Three decades in local Santa Barbara government before Sacramento, and a signed law making jail death investigations independent of the sheriffs who run them. **Trade-offs:** The jail-death law does not take effect until 2027, so its real effect on grieving families is still unproven. **Keep in mind:** A 62.5% primary is a fact about this district's registration as much as about his record. ## Sari Domingues Sari Domingues, 69, is a Santa Maria native and a retired business analyst who worked as a computer specialist for Monterey County for more than 12 years and for Santa Barbara County for more than 11 years. She holds degrees from Allan Hancock College, the University of La Verne and Chapman University, and raised three sons (Noozhawk). Domingues became active in local politics after retiring to care for her aging mother and mother-in-law, and in 2023 she founded a Santa Barbara County chapter of Moms for Liberty. She says she has spent the past three years studying Hart's record and "do[es] not agree on more than 80% of the things he has been voting on" — the reason, she says, that she is running (Noozhawk). Her platform centers on education — raising test scores and removing what she calls inappropriate subjects, including ethnic studies and LGBTQ+ studies, from primary classrooms — along with reducing crime and broader quality-of-life and family concerns (Noozhawk). "I am not a politician," she has said of her campaign (Noozhawk). **Strengths:** A specific, documented reason for running: three years spent reviewing the incumbent's voting record before deciding to challenge him. **Trade-offs:** No record in any office, and her platform centers on opposing one incumbent's votes rather than a separate agenda. **Keep in mind:** She founded a local Moms for Liberty chapter in 2023, a group with a national profile in school curriculum fights. How you weigh that is up to you. ## Record in office Gregg Hart (Democratic) is the sitting Assemblymember for this district and is lead author of 32 bills in the 2025–2026 session, 5 of them signed into law. Sari Domingues has not served in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress; these records cover only those offices. Per the California Legislature's public bill data (leginfo bulk download), retrieved 2026-09-21. ## Record details Hart — AB 14 (2025): Coastal resources: Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies Program. Hart — AB 1466 (2025): Groundwater adjudication. Hart — AB 471 (2025): County air pollution control districts: Antelope Valley Air Quality Management District: board members: compensation. Committee assignments and the most recently signed-into-law bills each record-holder lead-authored, from the official legislative record. ## Financial info - **Gregg Hart** - Primary: $676,628 raised (Individuals: $166,700; PACs & committees: $326,950; Businesses & other orgs: $174,850) - November: $40,650 raised (Individuals: $18,800; PACs & committees: $14,450; Businesses & other orgs: $7,400) - **Sari Domingues** - Primary: $4,854 raised (Small donors: $849; Individuals: $4,005) - November: No itemized funding reported yet. 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. Sari Domingues 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. [California State Assembly — Gregg Hart biography (career background, prior local offices held)](https://a37.asmdc.org/biography) 4. [California State Assembly — Gregg Hart official website newsroom (legislative priorities, Sable Offshore lawsuit stance)](https://a37.asmdc.org/) 5. [Santa Barbara Independent — Santa Barbara lawmaker passes bill requiring independent review of in-custody deaths (FACTS Act origin and Hart quote)](https://www.independent.com/2025/10/20/santa-barbara-lawmaker-passes-bill-requiring-independent-review-of-in-custody-deaths/) 6. [Noozhawk — Gregg Hart, Sari Domingues facing off again for state Assembly seat (Domingues biography, platform and quote)](https://www.noozhawk.com/gregg-hart-sari-domingues-facing-off-again-for-state-assembly-seat/) 7. [California Legislative Information — public bill data (bulk download)](https://downloads.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/) 8. [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 37 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 37 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/assembly-37 (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.