- Samuel Gallucci: Republican, pastor, nonprofit leader, former business executive
Gallucci is a 40-year resident of Ventura County and most recently was the senior pastor at Embrace Church in Oxnard. He is the founder and chief executive of the Kingdom Center, according to his campaign website, a nonprofit that provides shelter and transitional housing for at-risk women and children in Ventura County, and started another to provide food and legal and educational resources to migrant agricultural workers. Before becoming a pastor, he worked as an executive at IBM, according to his LinkedIn bio.
- Michael Koslow: Republican, retired Air Force veteran, retired federal agent, small business owner
Koslow is a retired state command chief master sergeant in the California Air National Guard, according to his campaign website. He concurrently worked as a federal agent for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which investigates fraud and abuse in Department of Defense programs. He later founded a private investigation firm, the Aenigma Investigation Agency, based in Westlake Village.
- Jacqui Irwin: Democrat, state Assembly member, former Thousand Oaks mayor
Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) has served in California’s State Assembly since 2014 and is the only candidate in the 26th District holding elected office. While in the Assembly, she has chaired committees on veterans affairs, taxation, climate change, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, according to her government bio, and authored legislation to increase local university funding and to expand the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. She began her public-service career on the Thousand Oaks City Council in 2004 and served two terms as mayor. Irwin has a background in engineering and worked at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab, according to her bio.
- Chris Espinosa: Democrat, environmental law advocate
Espinosa is an advisor of federal public policy and organizational development strategies for his consultancy company, Communities First Consulting. Previously, he was the legislative director for climate and energy policy at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization; worked as the director of outreach and engagement for the House Committee on Natural Resources and was the chief operating officer at GreenLatinos, a nonprofit focused on environmental issues in the Latino community.
- Sonia Devgan-Kacker: Democrat, physician and small-business owner
Devgan-Kacker is the owner of Westlake Village Urgent Care. She completed her undergraduate degree at Stanford University and her medical degree at UC Irvine and teaches other professionals and clinicians at UCLA, USC and other schools, according to her website.
Other candidates include:
- William Scott: Republican, retired Department of Defense civil servant
- Kyle Langford: Democrat, construction professional
- Crystal Golden: Republican
- Liam Andres Hernandez: Democrat
