# United States Representative, District 31 Compare records and positions simply between Eric Ching or Gil Cisneros for United States Representative, District 31 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (2-year term). - Jurisdiction: Federal - 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/us-rep-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: 96 out of 100 (Very strong), across 7 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Eric Ching** — Entrepreneur · Republican - **Gil Cisneros** — U.S. Congressman · Democratic Representative Gil Cisneros took 61.1% of the June 2 vote and Republican Eric Ching took 23.8% to claim the second slot. The district covers part of the eastern San Gabriel Valley. The winner holds one of 435 seats in the U.S. House for a two-year term. A member introduces bills, sits on committees that shape federal legislation, votes on the federal budget and on war powers, and handles casework between constituents and federal agencies. Seniority governs committee standing, so a longer-serving member carries influence a newcomer cannot. The incumbent draws the majority of his funding from committees, and none of his 13 sponsored bills this Congress have become law. His opponent raised about a tenth as much, entirely from individuals. The practical question is what this district gets from a safe seat. ## Gil Cisneros Gil Cisneros enlisted in the Navy after high school in 1989 and became a commissioned officer in 1994, serving roughly a decade before leaving active duty (cisneros.house.gov). In 2010 he and his wife Jacki won a 266 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot and turned to philanthropy, founding the Gilbert & Jacki Cisneros Foundation for college scholarships and later a Latino leadership institute at George Washington University (cisneros.house.gov). He was first elected to the House in 2018, served as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and as the Pentagon's first Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer under President Biden, and returned to Congress in 2025 representing California's 31st District, where he sits on the Armed Services and Small Business Committees (cisneros.house.gov). In July 2026 he voted against that year's National Defense Authorization Act, with his office citing what it called cultural war provisions in the bill (cisneros.house.gov). He has also led a letter to the Defense Department objecting to changes in merit-based military promotion rules, which he says make a performance-based process more political (cisneros.house.gov). His office has introduced bills on water system cybersecurity funding and protections for minority-owned federal contractors, and he has pressed Republican leadership to act on legislation for Dreamers (cisneros.house.gov). **Strengths:** Two prior House terms, a Pentagon post under President Biden, and a documented vote against this year's defense bill over its added provisions. **Trade-offs:** A Pentagon tenure that ended after about two years, and a wide primary win that leaves little sign of how contested his record actually is. **Keep in mind:** His record shows a willingness to break from his own party's defense bill and challenge Pentagon promotion changes; weigh that against how little competition his primary margin suggests he faces. ## Eric Ching Eric Ching is an entrepreneur, by their ballot designation, and a Republican. They have not served in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress. Their campaign site carries no usable content, and no news coverage of their platform or record could be located. That is a gap in what is public, not a comment on their candidacy. With no published platform to draw on, their promises cannot be listed here in their own words. **Strengths:** None documented; their campaign site did not return usable content, and no independent coverage of their record or platform could be located. **Trade-offs:** No campaign material or news coverage that could be verified, so voters have almost nothing to weigh against Cisneros's record. **Keep in mind:** No record in office to judge; coverage of this race carries little beyond their ballot designation as an entrepreneur. ## Record in office Eric Ching has not served in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress; these records cover only those offices. Gil Cisneros (Democratic) has served in the U.S. House since 2019 and has sponsored 15 bills in the 119th Congress; none of their bills have become law so far. Per Congress.gov and the public-domain congress-legislators roster, retrieved 2026-09-21. ## Record details Cisneros — Committees: Armed Services; Small Business Committee assignments and the most recently signed-into-law bills each record-holder lead-authored, from the official legislative record. ## Financial info - **Eric Ching** — $81,571 raised (Individuals: $81,321) - **Gil Cisneros** — $705,263 raised (Individuals: $240,264; PACs & committees: $453,650; Self-funding: $6,616) Total raised is all receipts for the 2026 cycle; the breakdown lists direct contributions, so the pieces can sum below the total. Figures are FEC filings through June 30, 2026, per the FEC bulk campaign-finance summaries, retrieved 2026-09-21. ## 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. [cisneros.house.gov — Gil Cisneros biography](https://cisneros.house.gov/about) 4. [cisneros.house.gov — Gil Cisneros press releases (votes, bills)](https://cisneros.house.gov/media/press-releases) 5. [congress-legislators — current members of Congress (unitedstates project)](https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-current.json) 6. [Congress.gov — member sponsored legislation (Library of Congress)](https://api.congress.gov/) 7. [FEC — 2026 House & Senate current-campaign financial summaries (bulk data)](https://www.fec.gov/files/bulk-downloads/2026/webl26.zip) ## The rest of the ballot United States Representative, 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, "United States Representative, District 31 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/us-rep-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.