The race for California’s 76th Assembly District features incumbent Democrat Darshana Patel against Republican challenger Carrie Espinoza Villanueva in a district that covers Escondido, San Marcos, Rancho Santa Fe and several northern neighborhoods of San Diego.
Patel and Villanueva also faced off in June’s primary, with Patel defeating her challenger by almost 15,000 votes, or nearly 12%. In the months since, Patel has greatly outraised her opponent.
As of Friday, state campaign finance records — which are only official through the end of September, though they also show large contributions received in October — showed Patel’s campaign had raised roughly $2.3 million, while unions and political action committees had spent more than $900,000 supporting her through independent expenditures.
Villanueva’s campaign, on the other hand, had raised about $28,000, or a little more than 1% of her opponent’s total. Meanwhile, records showed no independent expenditures supporting or opposing Villanueva since March, ahead of the primary, when a political action committee spent $4,000 supporting Villanueva with a voter guide mailer.
It’s unclear how seriously Villanueva is campaigning for the seat. She did not respond to multiple requests to be interviewed or provide a photo for this story, and her social media pages show no campaign activity.
Villanueva describes herself on her campaign website as a businesswoman and educator. She works at Palomar College, where she is listed on the school’s website as an academic department assistant in the trades and industry department. In campaign material, she describes her job at Palomar as “supporting programs like welding, auto, diesel, HVAC, water technology, and zero-emissions vehicle technology — the kinds of jobs that build America.” According to her website, Villanueva was “raised in an agricultural family.”
Assemblymember Darshana Patel (Courtesy of Darshana Patel)
Patel, a 52-year-old Rancho Peñasquitos resident, said in a recent interview that she worked as a research scientist after earning her doctorate in biophysics from UC Irvine. She was elected in 2016 to the Poway Unified school board and in 2024 to the state Assembly, where she became chair in her first term of the Education Committee.
Both candidates say the state’s cost of living is their top priority.
According to Villanueva’s website: “Carrie’s priorities are clear: lower the cost of living by cutting taxes and unnecessary regulations, address homelessness and addiction with compassion and firmness, promote education that leads to real jobs, protect retirees from having their savings taxed away, and push back against Sacramento’s unethical and destructive policies.”
Patel told the Union-Tribune that her top priorities are “addressing the affordability crisis,” public safety, public education and healthcare. She went into specific detail about how she spent her first term addressing each issue, and how she would spend her second term doing the same.
“(I) supported legislation authorizing California to sell E15, which is a slightly elevated ethanol level in gasoline … (that) does bring the price of gas down,” Patel said. “Things like that, things like streamlining housing construction processes (and) helping with the food banks so people can access food security. So lots of trying to address all the issues around affordability and … ‘how can we make government be more efficient with the taxpayer dollars that people are giving to the government?’”
Patel also highlighted $1.2 million in state funding that she helped secure for a new fire engine that will be housed at a fire station that recently broke ground in San Marcos. She also helped secure $4.5 million in funding in the recently passed state budget for the nonprofit Feeding San Diego to purchase refrigeration trucks and storage space.
Assembly members earn a salary of nearly $135,000 a year and are up for re-election every two years.