Your guide to California’s Assembly 8th District primary race
Republican David Tangipa appears to be a shoe-in for a second term representing his Central Valley and Sierra communities in the California Assembly, with no opponents in either the primary or general election this year.
Tangipa is one of the rising stars in California’s Republican Party. In the statehouse and on social media, he is a robust and at times acerbic critic of Democratic leadership, not just in the Legislature but at other levels of government.
Most recently, he’s focused, both in committee hearings and online, on conservatives’ allegations of widespread fraud in government programs administered by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, and was a staunch critic of the gubernatorial campaign of Eric Swalwell, who quit the race and resigned from Congress amid sexual assault allegations.
Tangipa has been the lead author on 43 bills during his first term in office, according to CalMatters legislative tracker Digital Democracy, which uses artificial intelligence., and has passed four of them through the Democratic supermajority and into law.
Where is the district?
The population of Tangipa’s district is mostly contained within a portion of Fresno County he represents, but geographically it also encompasses a vast swath of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Yosemite National Park falls within the district’s borders, which includes Inyo, Mariposa, Mono and Tuolumne counties as well as parts of Calaveras and Madera counties.
There were 337,964 registered voters in the district as of December 2025, and 210,984 lived in Fresno County. Of the district total, 98,162 are registered Democrats and 149,585 are registered Republicans — around 29% and 44% of the total registered voters, respectively.
Who is Tangipa?
Tangipa is a young lawmaker at just 30 years old. He played tight end for Cal State Fresno’s football team, and became a real estate agent after graduating. In 2024, he defeated a former Republican congressman, David Radanovich, in a race for the then open Assembly seat.
Who is funding him?
Tangipa reported having a little more than $165,000 in his campaign account as of mid-April. His larger donations have come from contractor unions, trade associations for railroads and dentists, a few California tribes and a large number of individuals who made the maximum contributions to his campaign fund last year.
