Assembly District 27 spans the agricultural core of California's Central Valley, encompassing portions of Merced, Fresno, and Madera Counties. The district takes in the cities of Coalinga, Kerman, San Joaquin, Merced, Mendota, Dos Palos, Madera, Los Banos, Firebaugh, Huron, Atwater, Chowchilla, and Livingston, along with portions of the City of Fresno.

Interstate 5 and Highway 99 serve as the district's main arteries, connecting farming communities, packing sheds, and small downtowns across a vast stretch of valley floor.

Merced, the district's largest city, is known as the Gateway to Yosemite, roughly two hours from Yosemite Valley and anchoring the district's northern end. Since 2005, it has also been home to the University of California, Merced, the youngest campus in the UC system, which earned R1 Carnegie research institution status in 2025 and is now the only R1 university in the Central Valley. 

The historic Merced County Courthouse, a 1875 Italianate landmark that now serves as a museum, stands as one of the last surviving examples of a courthouse style once common across the San Joaquin Valley.

The land itself tells the story of the district's character. Generations of farming families growing almonds, grapes, dairy, and row crops have shaped the communities along these corridors. 

It is a district drawn to protect the political voice of its majority-Latino population under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, uniting communities with shared concerns about affordable housing, healthcare, water access, transportation, broadband connectivity, and access to well-paying jobs.

Demographics, Housing, and Cost of Living

According to the 2023 American Community Survey, Assembly District 27 has a total population of 526,986. The district is majority Latino at 66.9%, with White residents comprising 19.9%, Asian residents 6.4%, and Black residents 3.5%. The citizen voting-age population stands at 55.2%, reflecting a large share of foreign-born residents (26.3%) and 16.3% classified as non-citizens.

Economic conditions in the district reflect significant hardship. The median household income is $65,569, with a mean household income of $86,884 and a per capita income of $26,295. Approximately 20.8% of residents live below the poverty line, 8.9% lack health insurance, and 22.5% of households receive food assistance, among the highest rates in the state.

Housing is nearly evenly split, with 53.3% of homes owner-occupied and 46.7% renter-occupied. The median home value is $345,700, and the median monthly rent is $1,257. The district is home to 13,567 civilian veterans, representing 3.7% of the population.

Registration Trends: Democrats Lead, But the Ground Is Shifting

As of December 30, 2025, Assembly District 27 had 236,843 registered voters. Democrats hold 39.7% of registrations, Republicans 29.1%, and No Party Preference voters 23.5%, with the remainder distributed among minor parties, including American Independent at 4.3%. On paper, Democrats maintain a registration edge of roughly 10.6 points.

But the longer arc tells a more complicated story. In 2008, the Democratic advantage stood at just 7 points. It widened through the Obama years and peaked at 15.7 points in 2022, carried in part by a surge in Democratic registration during the first Trump term. Since then, it has eroded steadily, falling to 12 points by the 2024 general election and slipping further to 10.6 points by the end of 2025. Republican registration has climbed from 27.3% in 2022 to 29.1% today, while the Democratic share has dropped from 43% to under 40%.

The growth of No Party Preference voters has been equally striking and may be the most consequential trend in the district. NPP registrations have nearly quadrupled in raw numbers since 2008, growing from 21,439 to 55,600, and their share of the electorate has risen from 13.9% to 23.5% over that same period. Nearly one in four voters in AD27 now belongs to no party. In a district where the registration gap between the two major parties has been narrowing, NPP voters do not merely influence outcomes; they decide them.

The district spans three counties with meaningfully different political profiles. Merced County accounts for 52.2% of registered voters and leans Democratic by 16.9 points. Fresno County represents 29.7% of the electorate and holds a 16-point Democratic advantage. Madera County, at 18.1% of registrations, is far more competitive, with Democrats holding just an 8.7-point edge, and Republican performance at the top of the ticket in recent cycles suggests even that margin may be soft.

Past Election Results Show a District in Motion

The registration numbers understate how far the district has moved. Gavin Newsom carried AD27 by 5.9% in 2018, and Joe Biden won it by 13.6% in 2020. 

Then the floor gave way. Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Dahle carried the district by 5.2% in 2022, and Donald Trump flipped it by 2.7% in 2024, even as Democrats still held a registration advantage of more than 12 points. In the 2024 U.S. Senate race, Republican Steve Garvey carried the district over Democrat Adam Schiff by 2 points.

The 2024 ballot measure results reinforce the district's rightward lean on public safety issues. Voters backed Proposition 36, which increased sentencing for certain drug and theft crimes, by a lopsided 73.7% to 26.3% margin.  However, voters in the district also supported Proposition 35, providing permanent Medi-Cal funding, by a margin of 67% to 33%, a combination that reflects both fiscal conservatism and strong support for healthcare programs in a district with high poverty and uninsured rates.

At the Assembly level, incumbent Democrat Esmeralda Soria demonstrated that a candidate with strong local ties and a moderate profile could still win. She defeated former Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin by just 3.4% in 2022 and won more comfortably against Republican Joanna Garcia Rose by 7.8% in 2024, even as Trump carried the district over Kamala Harris at the presidential level. 

An Open Seat Sets Up the Battle

This 2026 race snapped into focus in May 2025 when Soria announced she would seek the SD14 State Senate seat being vacated by Anna Caballero due to term limits. The announcement transformed an already competitive district into one of the top Republican targets in California.

Republican Mike Murphy, a business attorney and former Merced mayor, had filed months earlier. The Democratic field went through rapid consolidation. Merced City School Board member Priya Lakireddy was the first Democrat in, followed in September by Madera County Supervisor Leticia Gonzalez, who quickly secured Soria's endorsement. Lakireddy wound down her campaign shortly after. In December, Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco entered with endorsements from Soria, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, and a number of Fresno-area Republicans, prompting Gonzalez to stand down as well.

In stepping aside, Gonzalez cited the personal cost of a competitive campaign. Writing in the Madera Tribune, she pointed to time away from her young daughter as central to her decision, while expressing confidence that her campaign had assembled a viable path to victory. She indicated she would remain focused on her role as Madera County Supervisor.

Livingston City Councilmember Japjeet Singh Uppal has also filed as a Democrat. A No Party Preference candidate, Quintin Levesque, has also filed.

Fundraising through year-end 2025 showed Pacheco with a commanding financial advantage, having transferred funds from his Supervisor campaign committee to log $513,000 in receipts and close the period with $512,000 on hand. Murphy reported raising $356,000 to date, including $100,000 in candidate loans, and ending the year with $296,000 on hand.

The Candidates

Brian Pacheco (Democrat)

Brian Pacheco, born April 18, 1968, is a Fresno County Supervisor and fourth-generation family farmer and dairyman whose roots in the Central Valley run as deep as the irrigation canals that sustain it. A Kerman native, he graduated from Kerman High School and earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural and managerial economics, with a minor in rhetoric and communications, from UC Davis in 1991.

The dairy his great-grandfather founded runs more than 1,300 Holstein cows alongside an elite group of purebred Brown Swiss cows and has been recognized as a top-producing herd in Fresno County every year since 1998. The family operation also grows Thompson seedless grapes, almonds, alfalfa, corn silage, and winter forage. Pacheco is also a grower-member of Sun-Maid Raisin Growers.

From 2010 to 2012, he served as president of the Fresno County Farm Bureau and as board chairman of California Dairies, Inc., the nation's second-largest dairy cooperative. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Community Regional Medical Center, the Fresno-Madera Area Agency on Aging, and the Human Resources Advisory Board.

In 2012, UC Davis honored him with its Award of Distinction from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He has been a member of the Nisei Farmers League, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the Fresno, Biola, and Kerman chambers of commerce, and his family has a long history of involvement with 4-H and FFA.

Before his time on the Board of Supervisors, Pacheco served 12 years as a trustee on the Kerman Unified School District Board, including a term as board president. 

He was first elected to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in 2014 and has been re-elected twice, in 2018 and 2022.  He serves as District 1 Supervisor, representing the west side of Fresno County.

Pacheco partnered with fellow Supervisor Buddy Mendes to direct federal ARPA relief funds toward a rural mobile health program that provides no-cost medical services to farmworkers and agricultural communities with limited access to healthcare.

In one of his final acts on the Board before transitioning to his Assembly campaign, Pacheco co-sponsored an ordinance, passed unanimously in January 2026, that tightened county rules on transitional housing for registered sex offenders, limiting such facilities to no more than 6 beds. "For me, it's about concentration and public safety," he said. 

Pacheco also notably abstained when the Board voted 3-1 in September 2025 to oppose Proposition 50, the redistricting measure.

Pacheco is the Vice Chair of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency, a local public agency responsible for managing groundwater in a portion of central Fresno County. It was created in response to a 2014 state law requiring regions that have overpumped their groundwater supplies to develop a plan for long-term sustainability by 2040. In a part of California where agriculture depends heavily on groundwater and where water tables are dropping, the agency plays a central role in balancing the water needs of farmers, cities, and residents.

He entered the AD27 race in December 2025 and quickly consolidated Democratic support. His endorsements include Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, Representatives Jim Costa and Adam Gray, and former Assemblymember Jim Patterson. He also received the California Democratic Party's pre-endorsement conference endorsement and the party's official primary endorsement.

“Throughout my time as county supervisor, I’ve worked every day to make life easier and more affordable for the people I serve,” Pacheco said in a campaign announcement.  “I’m ready to bring that on-the-ground experience to the State Assembly to deliver affordability, public safety, clean, reliable water, and health care access for families in Fresno, Madera, and Merced counties.”

Pacheco and his wife, Alena, have three adult children.

Mike Murphy (Republican)

Mike Murphy, born August 19, 1979, is a business attorney and former mayor of Merced who has been campaigning for this seat since filing in early 2025. A Merced native who attended local schools before leaving for higher education, Murphy earned his bachelor's degree in international politics from Brigham Young University in 2004 and his law degree from Georgetown University in 2007, the same year he was admitted to the California Bar. 

He also lived abroad as a missionary in Tahiti, where he became fluent in French and Tahitian. He was a senior fellow with the American Leadership Forum and has been recognized among central California's top young business professionals by Business Street magazine.

Murphy began his legal career as an associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe before joining Gunderson Dettmer in 2012. He spent eight years as a partner at Murphy & Brawley, LLP from 2014 to 2022, then returned to Gunderson Dettmer, where he currently serves as Of Counsel.

In local government, Murphy won election to the Merced City Council in 2011 and served five years before being elected mayor in 2016, a position he held through 2020. 

As mayor, he highlighted a range of accomplishments, including a 55% reduction in city business fees, the launch of a small business retention program, and a partnership with UC Merced to open a downtown business accelerator. He also pointed to balanced budgets, new crime-fighting technology for the police department, and water conservation measures during a period of severe drought. 

He briefly explored an independent run for Congress against Representative Jim Costa in 2020 before deciding against it, a moment that reflects both his appetite for higher office and his willingness to consider paths outside the traditional party structure.

Murphy reported $356,000 raised to date in the Assembly race, including $100,000 in candidate loans, with $296,000 on hand at year-end 2025.

He lives in Merced with his wife, Heather, and their four children.

Japjeet Singh Uppal (Democrat)

Japjeet Singh Uppal is a Livingston City Councilmember who filed for the AD27 race in January 2026. He reported $5,000 on hand at the time of filing. A Livingston native, Uppal was sworn onto the city council at age 22, making him one of the youngest elected officials in California.

Uppal has positioned himself as an outsider candidate running explicitly against what he describes as a broken two-party system and the influence of corporate money in politics. 

He says growing up in Livingston gave him a direct view of how special interests shape government while working families are left behind. "The political machine is rigged against working people," he has said. "It's time to break it and build a government that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected."

In keeping with his outsider message, Uppal has stated he is not seeking endorsements from political figures or institutions, instead highlighting support from community members. His platform calls for publicly financed elections, universal childcare, a ban on institutional investors purchasing residential housing, and aggressive antitrust action against large technology, pharmaceutical, and utility companies. On water, he has called for major state investment in water infrastructure to support the district's agricultural economy. He has also emphasized privacy protections, opposing data-sharing arrangements between government agencies and private technology firms.

Uppal has also weighed in on foreign policy, including posting a statement on February 28 saying that “The United States is occupied by Israel. This is an illegal war on a country that did not attack us. Thousands of innocent lives may be lost to serve the interests of a power hungry, genocidal Israeli regime. Donald Trump needs to be impeached immediately.”

Quintin Levesque (No Party Preference)

Quintin Levesque, born April 10, 1996, is a lobbyist and the chief executive of The Peoples Advocacy Group. He has testified in Sacramento on behalf of California Health Coalition Advocacy. 

In June 2022, Levesque ran as a Republican in Assembly District 7, placing fifth. He studied at CSU Sacramento and resides in Citrus Heights. Levesque filed a statement of intention in January 2026.

An Open Seat, a Shifting Electorate, and the Power of Independent Voters

With no incumbent on the ballot, Assembly District 27 is poised to be one of the most contested legislative races in California in 2026. The ingredients for a genuine toss-up are all present: a registration advantage that has been shrinking for three straight cycles, a presidential-level result that went Republican in 2024 despite a double-digit Democratic registration edge, and nearly one in four voters who belong to no party at all.

That last factor cannot be overstated. No Party Preference registration in AD27 has grown from 13.9% of the electorate in 2008 to 23.5% today, a gain of nearly 34,000 voters in raw terms. In a district where the margin between the major parties has repeatedly come down to a few thousand votes, the NPP bloc is now larger than the entire margin of victory in most recent cycles. How those voters break, and whether either candidate can make a compelling case beyond base partisans, will likely determine the outcome in both June and November.

Pacheco enters as the clear Democratic frontrunner with institutional support, a well-known agricultural identity that fits the district, and a commanding financial advantage. Murphy is the only Republican who has filed, brings deep roots in Merced, and is competing in an environment where the top-of-ticket trend has moved decisively in his party's direction. The race for AD27's independent voters, the same bloc that has quietly reshaped the district's politics over the past decade, will be the race to watch.

About the 2026 California Top Two Primary

The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9.

This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, the California Target Book, California FPPC campaign finance filings, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Ballotpedia, the Fresno Bee, the Madera Tribune, the San Joaquin Valley Sun, the Associated Press, and other local and regional reporting.