History will be made no matter who wins the race between Democrat Rhodesia Ransom and Republican Denise Aguilar for the California Assembly’s District 13 seat.
If Ransom wins, she will be the first Black person elected to represent San Joaquin County in the state Legislature. If Aguilar wins, she will be the first Republican to represent San Joaquin in the state Legislature in 30 years.
Ransom has an extensive history of public service, serving on the Planning Commission for the city of Tracy from 2009 to 2016. She’s also served on the Tracy City Council since 2016.
While Aguilar, who also goes by Denise Aguilar Mendez, does not have the same history of public service, she has an extensive record of political engagement. She is a conservative activist who founded the anti-vaccine group Freedom Angels and attended the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
But Aguilar also has some legal issues in her past. In 2020, she was convicted of welfare fraud and pleaded guilty to lying to obtain nearly $11,000 in San Joaquin County aid, court records show.
Aguilar was sentenced to three years of informal probation, as well as community service and restitution, court records show.
“Yes I wasn’t always a politician and yes I have things in my past that these fools think will shift the conversation (but) it won’t,” Aguilar said on social media about the conviction.
Ransom led the March primary election with 41.6% of the votes. Aguilar moved on with the second next highest amount of votes at 37.9%.
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Ransom has another advantage. The voter registration makeup of the local state Legislature districts indicate it will be challenging for Republican candidates. Of the 13th District’s nearly 600,000 registered voters, Democrats makeup the largest voting block at about 49%. Republicans come in second at just about 22%.
Along with a few other key issues, Ransom said that her campaign is focused on addressing affordability and cost of living, creating local jobs and bringing back quality education.
“I want to make sure that our people are served in a way that they feel, and that means effective leadership,” Ransom said.
On her website, Aguilar says she is focused on “protecting children and parental rights, and correcting the soft-on-crime laws that have put small businesses in danger.”
This race has had an unusual path to the general election. Neither Ransom nor Aguilar were originally going to run in the District 13 race, but a last-minute switch changed both of the candidates’ minds.
Current Assemblymember Carlos Villapudua initially had registered to run for reelection in the District 13 but switched places with his wife Edith Villapudua at the 11th hour. Edith Villapudua initially registered to run for the California Senate seat in District 5 just before the December candidate filing deadline.
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Local politicians call this “The Switch,” and it radically changed the landscape of these local state elections.
This switch meant that Edith Villapudua would be running unopposed in state Assembly District 13. However, after hearing of the last moment switch-up, Aguilar decided she was going to run against her.
“I went in to put my name in the hat once that news dropped,” Aguilar said. “I don’t think that people should be running unopposed. I think there needs to be conversations on their positions, there needs to be engagement with the community. Nobody should be running unopposed. So, I didn’t think I had a better chance (than against Carlos). I just wanted to see if we can bring some kind of change to our district.”
Ransom also made an 11th-hour switch. Originally facing Edith Villapudua in state Senate District 5, Ransom switched to the assembly race right before the deadline. Around this time, former U.S. Congressman Jerry McNerney also through is name in for the state Senate district.
Both Edith and Carlos Villapudua lost their election bids during the March primary.
When asked why she believed “The Switch” happened, Ransom said she wanted to make sure voters had a choice.
“I wanted to make sure that the voters had the choice of someone like myself who would be able to represent their issues,” Ransom said. “The Villapuduas were trying to push me out of the state Legislature contingency, and I wanted to make sure that voters had a choice other than a Villapudua.”