Flojaune Cofer, who narrowly lost in the last mayoral race of Sacramento, announced on Tuesday morning that she’s officially throwing her hat in the ring for the District 1 position on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors.
She is entering an already competitive race. Current Sacramento City Councilmember Eric Guerra announced and filed his bid in October and is carrying the endorsement of the currently seated Supervisor Phil Serna. Serna plans to leave the seat after holding it for nearly 16 years. Cofer will also face former State Senator Deborah Ortiz, who is also running.
Cofer had been hinting at her interest in the position but hadn’t made a formal announcement until now. So to many, her announcement that she’s running may not come as a surprise.
Cofer said her decision to take this on now comes from the need to build off the momentum she built during her 2024 mayoral campaign. She described that run as a collective effort with the people who voted for and supported her.
“94,495 people voted in the last election and said, ‘Hey, we like this vision and we’d like to be a part of it,’” Cofer said. “I told them we are running for mayor and they said, ‘Yes, we are.’”
Cofer ran a competitive mayoral campaign in 2024. Cofer lost by just under 1% to the current Mayor, Kevin McCarty. Now she says the base she built during that run will help her in her stint for the county seat. She says she is relying on much of that continued support in the region and pointed out lawn signs still on display from her last run across the city.
“You still see those lawn signs outside even though the election’s been over for more than 14 months. So, we’re going to go back.”
She said the supervisor’s race feels like a continuation of that conversation and run, especially as Sacramento faces deepening housing and public health challenges that fall largely under county authority.
“This race really feels like it was built out of the mayor’s race [in 2024] and recognizing that so many of the challenges of the city. There’s a lot of power at the county to be able to be a good partner in that,” Cofer said.
County supervisors oversee much of the bureaucracy that residents interact with every day. This includes public health, mental health services, homelessness response, Medi-Cal, and the county budget. District 1 includes the majority of the city of Sacramento proper and unincorporated areas where the county stretches into.
She added that the campaign is not aiming to outspend opponents, but to raise enough to run a sustainable operation.
“We did a pretty good job at raising money in the mayor’s race, and so we’re going to come back and ask people who supported before to support again,” Cofer said. “But we’re also looking to expand that coalition to people who maybe didn’t know about us or had a different candidate in the mayor’s race and now want a different candidate in the county supervisor’s race.”
“This campaign doesn’t necessarily need all of the money in the world, but it needs enough to be able to run well and to pay my staff and make sure they have health insurance and a livable wage,” Cofer said. “We’re going to take what we need and not more.”
Cofer said part of her campaign will focus on helping voters better understand the role of a county supervisor.
“I got a text message from my aunt earlier today who was like, ‘Okay, so what does the county supervisor do?’” Cofer said. “That is the big challenge, not only to run for a seat but also to help define it.”
She pointed to health and food safety net support as areas she would closely watch as federal funding for these programs shrinks.
“Basically, a third of our county residents are on Medicaid,” Cofer said. “So when those cuts to Medicaid, when the cuts to SNAP benefits are happening, they are directly impacting us at the local level.”
Cofer said her background in epidemiology and already working on health policy at the county level separates her from her opponents.
“But I also think my approach comes from my love and appreciation of data and my love [for] people, and recognizing that when we bring those two things together, we can have really good ideas,” she said.
Cofer has framed her campaign as part of the broader national progressive movement that is forming locally. Cofer has been helping organize and campaign for current Councilmember Mai Vang, who is running to take on Doris Matsui in California’s 7th congressional district.
Cofer says she still plans to work closely with Vang on her campaign through her run for the county.
“What people are looking for right now is how do we get some things done and how do we work well together,” Cofer said. “We can show exactly how well we can work together, how well we can strategize, and how we make sure that what we’re doing at the local level actually protects our communities in real time.”
Voters will now see her name on the primary ballot, coming in June.
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