BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — After eight years of serving the 12th Senate District in California, State Senator Shannon Grove is term-limited. Three candidates are running for the seat in the upcoming primary election.
The candidates are Nathan Magsig, a Republican from Clovis, William Brown Jr., a Libertarian from Visalia, and Louis Miramontes, a Republican from Visalia. Out of these three candidates, only two will advance to the general election in November.
Magsig has spent the last 25 years in politics and the private construction sector, most recently serving as a county supervisor for Fresno County.
“It's always been a calling. I love to serve people, and I come from a line of pastors. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all pastors. And for me, I did not feel led to be a pastor of a church full-time, but I did feel led to be involved working with people and serving people,” Magsig said.
Magsig's focus is on addressing the issue of costs plaguing California voters.
“Affordability is the top issue in the state. Everything is extremely expensive, and right now, California does not have excess money, depending on who you listen to. The Legislative Budget Office in Sacramento says that the state may have about an $18 billion deficit right now,” Magsig said.
“One of the things I want to do right now is just unwind bureaucracy. There are a lot of laws in place which restrict our ability here in Kern County, for me, from being able to drill new wells, we've seen a number of refineries close. There are several refineries here in Kern County that need to be protected, and to the extent their operations can be expanded,” Magsig said.
Brown, a licensed clinical social worker, is relatively new to the political realm. He ran for Jasmeet Bains' seat in 2024 and is now running for the state senate seat without taking donations.
“I'm not taking any campaign, you know, funding whatsoever. This is about me and running for the people, because I will not be beholden to the dollar. And so for me, I just want to get in here and challenge both Democrats and Republicans to see what we can do to make California better for all of us,” Brown said.
As a Libertarian, Brown's top priority is finding ways to work with both parties.
“I want to find areas, just like AB five and other areas, to where both Democrats and Republicans and libertarians like myself can come to a come to the table and find ways to make things better for us here in California, you know, we want to focus on ensuring that not only we have that prevention of government overreach, excuse me, but also trying to find those areas, you know, where we just find ourselves in a budget deficit that is just not benefiting anyone,” Brown said.
Miramontes is an aircraft mechanic who is new to the political realm and running his first campaign. He wants to get involved because years in the government sector jaded him, and he wants to be the change.
“It just kind of it upset me, which is why I left the government and went to a private agency still doing an aircraft mechanic, but I've seen that kind of rhetoric or that kind of acting everywhere that I've seen politics or just people mismanaging any kind of situation,” Miramontes said.
Miramontes' goal on day one is transparency with his district when working to solve the problems they face.
“My thing would be to make sure that my constituents are not fed the wrong information…What I want is to bring everybody together and make sure that when we try to solve the state's problems, that we do it the right and correct way, and that we are financially responsible for what we're doing, not just spending money, because we've seen that spending $37 billion in homelessness gets us nowhere,” Miramontes said.
Voters can cast their ballots in the primary election on June 2 of this year.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:
