Esmeralda Soria
Candidate for State Senate District 14
Esmeralda Zamudio Soria was born April 22, 1982, in Visalia, California. Her parents were immigrants from Michoacán, Mexico. She now represents California's 27th Assembly District. She has held that seat since December 2022. She earned a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley. She earned a law degree from UC Davis School of Law. She later completed an executive leadership program. That program was at Harvard. Early in her career, she worked as a policy aide. She worked in the California State Capitol. She interned at the White House. She served as district director for then-State Senator Michael J Rubio. She also worked as a policy advisor. She advised Assemblymember Henry T Perea. She worked as a project director too. She worked for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. She also taught at Fresno City College. Soria served on the Fresno City Council. She represented District 1, from 2015 to 2022. She became the first Latina council president in Fresno's history. She ran for California's 16th Congressional District in 2020. She lost that primary. She then won election to the Assembly in 2022. She was reelected in 2024. In 2026 she is running for a new seat. That seat is the newly configured California State Senate District 14. Home: Fresno, California, in the Central Valley. She grew up in Visalia. Occupation: California State Assemblymember, District 27. That is her current elected office. Prior office: She has been the incumbent Assemblymember since 2022. She previously served on the Fresno City Council. That was District 1, from 2015 to 2022. She was Council President there.
On the issues
- Housing & Homelessness
Soria has advanced legislation to expand affordable housing, sponsoring a housing bill package that cleared the Assembly Housing Committee with unanimous, bipartisan support.
Source → - Public Safety & Policing
Soria has authored legislation increasing penalties for sexual exploitation of children and requiring safeguards against patient sexual abuse in medical settings.
Source → - Criminal Justice & Courts
Soria supported Governor Newsom's reversal of a parole board recommendation to release a man convicted of murdering his wife, framing the reversal as justice for the victim's family.
Source → - Health & Health Care
Soria has focused on expanding health workforce training and supporting rural/Central Valley hospital access, including nursing education expansion and celebrating the reopening of a shuttered rural hospital.
Source → - Education & Schools
Soria supports expanding nursing higher-education pathways through community colleges and has directed state grant funding to local K-12 schools.
Source → - Environment, Energy & Climate
Soria has sought to ease the timeline of California's zero-emission school bus mandate for rural districts, citing implementation challenges, rather than opposing the mandate outright.
Source → - Water & Natural Resources
Soria has supported legislation to boost groundwater recharge in the Central Valley.
Source → - Government, Elections & Democracy
Soria has introduced legislation to shift redistricting authority in Merced County from the county board of supervisors to an independent 11-member citizens' redistricting commission.
Source →
Profiles are compiled from the candidate’s own statements and public records. We never tell you how to vote.