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County · Statewide General Election

Imperial County Board of Supervisors, District 5

This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.

On the ballot

This person would be one of five supervisors governing Imperial County: the annual budget, county ordinances, land use and services in the unincorporated county, and appointments to most non-elected county offices. A 4-year term.

Imperial County's Board of Supervisors, District 5 goes to a November run-off: incumbent John Hawk faces challenger Patricia "Patty" Lizarraga after neither cleared a majority in the June 2 primary, which also included a third candidate, Lorena Minor-Montes.

The winner serves a 4-year term as one of five supervisors governing Imperial County: the annual budget, county ordinances, land use and services in the unincorporated county, and appointments to most non-elected county offices. The county's own Board of Supervisors is a district-elected, 5-member body, per Wikipedia's summary of the county's government structure, which also independently confirms Hawk as the sitting District 5 supervisor and current Board chair.

Neither candidate won a majority in June: the Calexico Chronicle's own early-count story (11.93% turnout, explicitly labeled too early to project winners) had Hawk leading Lizarraga 955 votes to 627 -- directional evidence of why a run-off exists, not a final result. A dedicated Chronicle forum article from that same primary season is unusually detailed on substance, covering both candidates' answers on infrastructure, road repairs, economic development, county employee pay, and the county's data-center zoning decision. KYMA's 2026 Voter Guide independently corroborates both candidates' basic facts and separately lists a party affiliation for each, even though this is a nonpartisan county office.

John Hawk

John Hawk is the sitting District 5 supervisor, first elected in 2022 and selected by his colleagues as Board chair in January 2025; he holds a degree in agronomy and serves as a commissioner on the Imperial County Transportation Commission and the Local Agency Formation Commission. At a May 2026 candidate forum he highlighted an in-house asphalt paving machine the county purchased for roughly $250,000 per mile, versus contractor rates approaching $1 million per mile, as a cost-saving win; defended the county's approval of a data center near a new school as a permitted use under industrial zoning dating to 1974 ("we must obey the law"); backed the Lithium Valley project and the One World Beef community-benefit loan program, which he said created 600 jobs; and cited a two-year-old employee classification study showing county workers underpaid 8-12 percent versus comparable agricultural counties, with a planned three-to-four-year fix. KYMA's own candidate profile lists his top priorities as infrastructure, jobs, and public parks, and lists him as a Republican Party member.

Strengths

A full term of hands-on Board experience, including a stint as Board chair, plus direct transportation- and land-use-commission service relevant to the seat.

Trade-offs

His defense of the data-center zoning and the pay-study's still-unresolved gap after two years were both live points of criticism from his opponent at the same forum.

Keep in mind

The paving-machine cost comparison and the 600-jobs claim are Hawk's own stated figures at the forum, as reported by the Chronicle -- not independently audited by this dataset.

Patricia "Patty" Lizarraga

Patricia "Patty" Lizarraga is challenging Hawk for the District 5 seat after a 25-year career in the Imperial County Auditor-Controller's Department, from which she retired earlier in 2026; she holds a Bachelor's in public administration from San Diego State University, an MBA from Grand Canyon University, and pension-management certifications from UC Berkeley and Pepperdine, and has served as a county retirement-board trustee and lead representative for the County Professional Employee Group. At the May 2026 forum she framed border infrastructure as a binational issue requiring closer collaboration with Mexicali, argued the county already receives adequate tax-allocation funding for road repairs if supervisors complete the proper regional-transportation-commission claiming procedures, opposed the data center near the school and called for full environmental review and negotiated community benefits, and prioritized affordable permitting for local entrepreneurs. KYMA's own candidate profile lists her stated priorities as public safety and animal control, economic development, and fiscal accountability, and lists her as a Democratic Party member.

Strengths

A quarter-century inside county government finance, including retirement-system and employee-classification subject matter directly relevant to the pay-study dispute at the center of this race.

Trade-offs

No prior elected office; her platform leans on financial and administrative expertise rather than the infrastructure/land-use track record an incumbent supervisor accumulates.

Keep in mind

Beyond the forum coverage and KYMA's short profile, no independent news coverage of her campaign was found in this pass -- a real gap, but roughly symmetric with what's independently available on Hawk's record.

Source review: Strong (81/100) · 9 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

  • elections.imperialcounty.org (opens in a new tab)Imperial County Registrar of Voters -- "Imperial County Candidate Status" document for the November 3, 2026 General Election (Updated as of 08/20/2026): names City of Imperial Council candidates Robert C. Shields (Correctional Sergeant), James Tucker (Business Owner), Victor Lopez (Auto Tech), and Sara Solorzano (Congressional Field Representative), no "NO ELECTION" tag; separately flags "City of Imperial Clerk - Elect 1" "NO ELECTION" with sole candidate Kristina Shields (Incumbent). Fetched and read directly as a PDF. Re-fetched and re-extracted 2026-09-02 with layout-preserving text extraction (pypdf's extraction_mode='layout'), which resolves this multi-column document's column-order ambiguity and confirms exactly which "NO ELECTION" tag sits under which header: "Board of Supervisors - District 1 RUN-OFF - Elect 1" (Jesus Eduardo Escobar*, Enrique "Kiki" Alvarado) and "...District 5 RUN-OFF - Elect 1" (John Hawk*, Patricia "Patty" Lizarraga) both carry no such tag -- genuinely contested runoffs -- while "Imperial County Office of Education - Area I - Elect 1" (sole candidate Cesar R. Rodriguez*) and "...Area II - Elect 1 - CANDIDATE FILING EXTENDED" (sole candidate Arnold A. Preciado) are each individually tagged "NO ELECTION" directly beneath their own header, the same Section 10229 cancellation tag documented elsewhere in this file.
  • elections.imperialcounty.org (opens in a new tab)Imperial County Registrar of Voters -- official "List of Contests" spreadsheet for the November 3, 2026 General Election, generated pre-filing in July 2026: 'City of Imperial - Council', 3 seats, 4-year term, incumbents Ida S. Obeso Martinez, Stacy Mendoza, James Tucker; 'City Clerk', 1 seat, 4-year term, incumbent Kristina Shields.
  • elections.imperialcounty.org (opens in a new tab)Imperial County Registrar of Voters -- its own "Candidate Filing Documents" page: lists real, dated 2026 FPPC filings (Forms 460, 470, 410, 501, 700) for all four Board of Supervisors run-off candidates -- Jesus Eduardo Escobar (Forms 460/700 from 2018-2026, most recently a 460 filed 7/10/2026), Enrique Alvarado (460s 5/21/2026 and 4/23/2026, 470 2/20/2026, 501 2/20/2026, 700 2/27/2026), John Hawk (460s 7/15, 5/21, 5/7 amendment, and 5/4/2026, 501 2/26/2026, 700 2/26/2026), and Patty Lizarraga (460 9/1/2026, 470 7/6/2026, 460 4/23/2026, 410 4/23/2026, 501 2/11/2026, 700 2/12/2026).
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Imperial County, California": used for the county Board of Supervisors' 5-member, district-elected, 4-year-term structure and to independently confirm Jesus Eduardo Escobar (District 1) and John Hawk (District 5) as the sitting supervisors, matching both run-offs' incumbents; also cross-checks the county's 2020 Census population (179,702).
  • calexicochronicle.com (opens in a new tab)Calexico Chronicle -- Richard Montenegro Brown, "Early June 2 Primary Election Results Are In" (June 3, 2026): reports early, explicitly non-final vote counts at 11.93% turnout -- District 1: Alvarado 963 votes (49.41%), Escobar 541 (27.76%); District 5: Hawk 955 votes (46.36%), Lizarraga 627 (30.44%) -- and states outright "it appears too early to project winners" in several races. Cited here only as directional evidence that neither race cleared a majority in June, not as final results; no later or certified county canvass of this primary was located this pass.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result access check: California's statewide Cal-Access campaign-finance filer/candidate search was queried directly this pass and returned no usable content, consistent with the same class of block documented elsewhere in this dataset.
  • calexicochronicle.com (opens in a new tab)Calexico Chronicle -- Sophia Gaxiola, "Mujeres with Voice Host District 5 County Board Candidate Forum" (May 1, 2026): covers the April 30 forum, moderated by Patricia Arevelo Caro, ahead of the June 2 primary -- names all three primary candidates (Hawk, Lizarraga, non-advancing Lorena Minor-Montes) and details each candidate's answers on infrastructure, road repairs, economic development, employee compensation, and the county's data-center zoning decision.
  • kyma.com (opens in a new tab)KYMA -- 2026 Voter Guide candidate profile for John Hawk: confirms his District 5 re-election bid, lists his top stated priorities as infrastructure, jobs, and public parks, and lists a Republican Party affiliation.
  • kyma.com (opens in a new tab)KYMA -- 2026 Voter Guide candidate profile for Patricia "Patty" Lizarraga: confirms her 25-year career in the Imperial County Auditor-Controller's Department (retired earlier in 2026), lists her stated priorities (public safety/animal control, economic development, fiscal accountability), and lists a Democratic Party affiliation.

Last updated September 2, 2026.