State Senator, District 18

Steve Padilla is a Democrat and the sitting State Senator for this district. He is seeking a second term. Before Sacramento he spent 13 years in law enforcement in Chula Vista and Coronado. He worked on domestic violence and child abuse cases. He later served on the Chula Vista City Council and became the city's mayor. He was the first Latino mayor and the first openly LGBT person elected to office there.

He says if you work hard, you should be able to make it in California. He calls his campaign a fight to rebuild opportunity. In 2023 the governor vetoed his bill to speed up approval of new power-line projects. Padilla called the veto disappointing. He said California cannot rely on an old power grid for the future.

He promises to protect homeowners from rising utility bills tied to data centers. He wants guardrails on AI therapy chatbots. He wants to keep addressing the cost of energy in California. His campaign priorities are opportunity, safety, and a clearer path to a better life for families.

Art Hodges is a Republican. He spent 40 years as a pastor before he retired from ministry in July 2025. He later became a bishop over churches and clergy across Southern California. He has held CEO and board roles at a children's home, a university, and other faith groups. He says he helped lead a legal fight against the state's pandemic-era limits on church gatherings. He says that fight reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

He says he is running because his own three grown children cannot afford to buy a home in California. He wants to change that for the next generation. He points to his church lawsuit as proof he gets things done. He calls himself a doer, not a talker.

He promises to focus on the sanctity of life, support for biological sex and traditional marriage, and religious liberty. He also wants to fix housing costs and the Tijuana River sewage problem that keeps closing local beaches. He says his campaign rests on basic American principles, not his faith.