Dyer Laces Up His Boxing Gloves for Pivotal Fresno Elections<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SANDRA-CELEDON-WILL-BURN-IT-DOWN-NO-MATTER-WHAT-IT-IS-1024x492.jpg\")
This is the campaign flyer distributed by the Fresno Healthy Communities, No on Celedon for State Assembly and Arambula for City Council 2026 and Yes on Polsgrove for Assembly 2026 political action committee.
\nWho Will Make the Run-Off?<\/p>\n
In addition to Celedon, the race includes another Democrat, sitting Fresno City Councilmember Annalisa Perea, and Republican Jim Polsgrove, who is a former city of Fresno public works supervisor.<\/p>\n
Perea is the apparent front-runner in the race, having amassed a huge campaign fund and an impressive list of endorsements. As to who might finish second in the top-two primary, I would give the edge to Polsgrove despite his low profile because of Republican voter loyalty. The district\u2019s registration is 43.45% Democrat, 23.82% Republican, and 23.95% No Party Preference.<\/p>\n
Celedon doesn\u2019t talk to GV Wire, but she has addressed \u201cBurn It Down\u201d in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t judge me on a tweet \u2013 judge me on my actions,\u201d she told The Fresno Bee in March 2025. \u201cI didn\u2019t go out and be destructive. I woke up the next day and went to work. That\u2019s when I joined the advocacy efforts that led to the Black Lives Matter march that ultimately led to the Fresno Commission on Police Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fresno\u2019s Latest Walking Man: Fernando Alvarez<\/p>\n
Arambula is the favorite in the District 3 city council campaign, but Fernando Alvarez \u2014 who grew up in southwest Fresno \u2014 is working hard to extend the campaign to a November run-off.<\/p>\n
At age 21, he won a seat on the West Park Elementary School District school board. His work at the Fresno Chamber of Commerce has earned the support of that group\u2019s CEO, Gazebo Gardens owner Scott Miller. One of Alvarez\u2019s supporters told me that the young politician has already walked the district twice.<\/p>\n
Winning by walking is a proven winning strategy in Fresno, even as the city continues to grow. No one had heard of Henry R. Perea in the late 1990s when he ran for city council, but he won a seat by relentlessly walking the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have no money, you have to walk,\u201d Perea said. \u201cI didn\u2019t even have campaign brochures, so I wrote something out, ran off copies at Kinko\u2019s and handed them out door-to-door.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Fernando](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Fernando-Alvarez-big-e1779483060444-1024x908.jpg\")
Fernando Alvarez is laying the groundwork for potential election success by campaigning door-to-door in Fresno City Council District 3. (alvarezforcouncil.com)<\/p>\n
During that same era, political unknown Chris Mathys said he wore out nearly a half-dozen shoes while campaigning on foot for the northwest Fresno seat. That effort culminated with Mathys knocking out incumbent Linda Calandra.<\/p>\n
More recently, we\u2019ve seen Nick Richardson overcome attorney Roger Bonakdar\u2019s overwhelming edge in funding and endorsements to win the open northeast seat in 2024. The secret sauce of Fresno County Supervisor Garry Bredefeld\u2019s long political career is daily door-to-door campaigning. Even in summer\u2019s torrid heat.<\/p>\n
Why Walking Works<\/p>\n
Why does knocking on doors work?<\/p>\n
People want to meet the person seeking their vote. They want to ask questions and rate the responses. Appearance, delivery, personality, and where you stand on the issues matter, of course.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, it\u2019s an opportunity to form an emotional connection with voters. Those who are successful stand a good chance of winning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You knew it was coming from the moment community activist Sandra Celedon announced she was running for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-328426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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