Sarah RasconSarah Rascon

Our Revolution is backing Sarah Rascón for California State Senate District 26 — an environmental advocate running a bold progressive campaign rooted in working families, environmental justice, and expanding opportunity in communities too often left behind. Sarah was raised in El Sereno by her immigrant grandmother and became the first person in her family to graduate from college. She has spent her career expanding opportunities for young people and working to protect parks, open spaces, and the water communities depend on. She served as an East Area Planning Commissioner, giving her firsthand experience with the decisions that shape development in Los Angeles communities. Her campaign puts environmental and social justice at the center — connecting the fight for a livable planet with the fight for economic opportunity and stronger communities.

Residents of Senate District 26 deserve a state senator who comes from the community, and is deeply rooted in immigrant neighborhoods, environmental justice, and working-class Los Angeles. That candidate is Sarah Rascon.

The district stretches across some of the most politically dynamic and economically pressured parts of Los Angeles, including Boyle Heights, Downtown, Chinatown, Eagle Rock, East Hollywood, Cypress Park, and Atwater Village. It is a district where questions of housing, immigrant rights, environmental justice, public health, and displacement are not abstract policy debates but lived realities.

With Senator Maria Elena Durazo running for Los Angeles County Supervisor, this open-seat race is a real contest over what kind of Democrat will represent communities that have long powered progressive politics in Los Angeles. The district needs someone whose politics were formed in the struggles of the communities she seeks to represent.

Sarah Rascón offers exactly that kind of candidacy. A first-generation candidate raised by her immigrant grandmother, Rascón has described a life shaped early by children’s court, social workers, and the public systems that families rely on when they are struggling. That background helps explain why her campaign is centered not on technocratic abstraction but on the practical question of whether government actually helps ordinary people survive and thrive.

Rascón has spent her career in public service and community-facing work. She has worked in voter engagement, served in local government offices, and most recently worked at at the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, where she focused on revitalizing the LA River and preserving natural space. She has also highlighted work bringing social services and mental health resources to Eastside families, including support tied to Los Angeles County’s Prop 1 investments. That mix of neighborhood-level service, environmental advocacy, and government experience makes her especially well suited to a district where quality of life is shaped by both economic precarity and environmental neglect.

Just as important, Rascón appears to understand the difference between being adjacent to progressive politics and actually being accountable to it. She has said plainly that “a status quo Democrat isn’t good enough,” and her campaign frames itself as a challenge to politics built around careerism rather than service. In a district like SD 26, that distinction matters.

Another candidate, Sara Hernandez is, by any fair measure, an impressive and well-qualified candidate. She’s whip smart, incredibly hard-working, has raised a ton of money and is running the strongest campaign of any candidate in the district. She is an educator, nonprofit founder, housing attorney, and current Los Angeles Community College District trustee, and she talks fluently and persuasively about the housing crisis and many other topics. On paper, that makes her look like a strong fit for a district drowning in unaffordability. The only current elected official in the race, she has assembled a truly impressive set of endorsements including legislators of diverse ideological leanings, all kinds of labor organizations including the teachers union, several YIMBY groups, Jackie Goldberg and many more.

The problem is not that Hernandez lacks progressive positions; she supports some tenant protections, talks about social housing and community land trusts, and clearly understands the scale of the housing crisis. The issue is that her overall political profile and alliances do not line up with the kind of grounded, movement‑based progressive representation this district has come to expect. Her support from newer “abundance” and “new liberal” formations, and her appeal among more technocratic, professional‑class circles, speak to a different political center of gravity than the one rooted in tenant unions, immigrant‑rights organizations, and long‑time working‑class base‑building groups.

In forums and in her own messaging, Hernandez often frames herself as a pragmatic problem‑solver who can “get things done” and “make government work better.” That has obvious appeal, but it also tends to flatten the power questions that define truly progressive politics in places like Boyle Heights, Chinatown, and East Hollywood: who is at the table, who is being organized, who is being asked to compromise, and who keeps winning. Hernandez is a very strong Democrat who would be a productive legislator, but she has not made a fully convincing case that she will consistently side with tenants and grassroots organizations when their demands collide with the preferences of donors, institutional players, and the political establishment. It’s especially concerning that the real estate interests like the landlords and realtors associations are spending significant amounts of money to support her and that she won’t commit to overturning roadblocks to supporting tenants like the Ellis Act and Costa Hawkins.

That is why, in this race, progressives should appreciate Hernandez’s strengths yet still give the edge to Sarah Rascón.

Rascón’s campaign and pitch is less polished than Hernandez’s, but it is more grounded in the district’s political soul. She is speaking directly to working families, immigrants, excluded communities, and neighborhoods that are tired of being treated as raw material for other people’s agendas. Her emphasis on environmental justice, housing affordability, social services, and community-rooted representation fits a district that has always demanded more than Democratic politics.

The contrast between Rascón and Hernandez gets at the larger question before voters: who best represents the next generation of progressive leadership in central and East Los Angeles. Rascón is making a credible case for it through biography, values, and the constituencies she seems most intent on serving and who she’ll ultimately be accountable to. Best case scenario we get November general election between Sarah Rascón and Sara Hernandez. We recommend you vote for Sarah Rascón to make that match up a reality.

Courage California endorses Sarah Rascón for State Senate to put SD-26 on the right track for progress.

Electoral newcomer Sarah Rascón has taken a progressive angle in the race. An El Sereno native, Rascón’s career spans community organizing, state legislative work, Latino civic participation initiatives, and most recently environmental equity at the Mountains Recreation Conservation Authority. Though she has worked for various Status Quo Coalition politicians including a brief term in the Bass administration, she is running a clean-money campaign. Her platform rejects “corporate PACs” and “PACs representing foreign governments”, alongside calling for “the full liberation of Palestine.” In more state-government-specific items, she supports single-payer healthcare via CalCare, repealing the Ellis and Costa-Hawkins Acts, and reforming Proposition 13. The choice is clear: vote for Sarah Rascón.