Lydia A. Gutiérrez
Candidate for Assembly District 65
Lydia A. Gutiérrez is the Republican pick for a state Assembly seat, District 65. The vote is set for November 2026. She runs against Democrat Ayanna Davis. The seat is open, since Mike Gipson is termed out. Gutiérrez grew up one of ten kids. Her father was born in Missouri, to migrant farmworkers. Her mother was born in San Pedro, California. She holds a liberal-arts degree from Pepperdine. She holds a master's too, in bilingual education, from Cal State Dominguez Hills. Her career has spanned public school teaching. She also did office work in aerospace once. That covered F/A-18 radar parts, and Bradley Tank cost estimates. More recently she has taught math to teachers. That work has run through UCLA's Math Project, known as Center X. She also held a writing fellowship, at Cal State Long Beach. She has lectured for a county math-teacher group too. She served seven years on an elected panel: the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. Gutiérrez has never won partisan office. But she runs often. She won a 2008 GOP primary, for state Senate District 25, then lost that fall. She ran, and lost, for state schools chief, in 2010 and again in 2014. She lost a 2015 LA Unified school-board race too, in District 7, to incumbent Richard Vladovic. She ran for a seat on the Los Angeles Community College District board in 2020. She ran for this same Assembly seat in 2022, as a write-in in the primary, and again in 2024. She lost that 2024 race. Her current age is not confirmed in sources checked. Home: San Pedro area, Los Angeles, California, based on her years on a local neighborhood council. Job: Math-education lecturer, with UCLA's Math Project and a county math-teacher group. She was a public school teacher before that. Prior office: None; she has never won elected office. She has run often for state, county, and local seats since 2008. That includes two earlier runs for this same Assembly seat, in 2022 and 2024.
On the issues
- Taxes & Cost of Living
Has previously called for greater transparency in how public funds are spent, though this statement dates to a 2015 school board race rather than the current 2026 Assembly campaign.
Source → - Education & Schools
As a former teacher and math-education lecturer, has advocated (in a past school-board race) for returning more classroom control to teachers and reducing test-prep mandates, though this dates to a 2015 LAUSD race rather than her current Assembly platform.
Source →
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