A Santa Ynez investment banker is looking to swing the power on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.

Frank Troise, founder of SoHo Capital, a company marketed as “We Are the Gateway Firm to Asia Pacific,” wants to unseat incumbent Joan Hartmann in the March 5 primary.

Troise, endorsed by the Santa Barbara County Republican Party, so far has run a politically nuanced campaign.

He says he will drop out of the race before the March 5 primary if the other candidates, Hartmann and Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne, endorse his revenues platform.

Rather than naming Hartmann, he prefers to say the name of Darcel Elliott, the chair of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party, and says he is running against “Darcel.”

“Our platform of a commitment to revenue that would properly fund the county’s men and women in public safety, and the county’s schools, is a much easier political decision for Darcel to make,” Troise said. “If she committed to our platform, I would gladly support and endorse any candidate Darcel would present to the county.”

Elliott told Noozhawk, “I don’t really see Frank as a threat” and that “I don’t commit to platforms based on whether a candidate will stay in the race.”

She added that his revenue platform, and the numbers, “don’t make any sense.”

Troise, however, is a confident candidate who says the county should be “run like a business.”

He has appeared regularly on CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg and BBC, where he offers his financial analysis. His company’s research has been published in financial publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and the Sacramento Bee.

His goal is to increase public safety personnel, citing fentanyl overdoses in the county and a recent homicide in Lompoc.

He intends to add $200 million in revenue to the county budget by creating a Lompoc Tech campus, creating Lompoc space tourism and accelerating delayed projects in planning and development. He said the revenues would be geared toward public safety, education, reducing taxes for local businesses, and improving services and local nonprofit partnerships.

Troise, in his interview with Noozhawk, also attempted to align Elliott with Karen Jones, who was charged and arrested for her involvement in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots.

Jones endorsed Hartmann in 2016.

“Darcel Elliott, and her candidate, adopted a Jan. 6 insurrectionist and threw the environmentalists under bus on Aug. 22, 2023, for political expediency and to gain re-election,” Troise said.

Elliott said she has never met Jones. Any endorsement for Hartmann came several years before Jan. 6, 2020.

Regarding Troise’s environmentalists claims, Hartmann recused herself from an August vote to re-open the Exxon pipeline because her property borders it.

“If Darcel is serious about the climate, she needs to put somebody else in the chair whose estate is not adjacent to a pipeline,” Troise said.

Even though Troise is conservative, he says he is not a “MAGA Republican” and does not support Donald Trump. He acknowledges that he has not unified the Republican Party, nor was he the group’s first choice.

Troise is confident about his chances. He said that any Republican could win post-redistricting.

Elliott has said this year’s election is “a bit of a toss-up.” Isla Vista was taken out of the Third District, which erases about 10,000 Isla Vista voters, who traditionally voted for liberal Democrat candidates.

The registration breakdown in the new district is about 21,560 Democrats, 14,501 Republicans and 10,952 voters with no party preference. However, in 2020 the March primary turnout was 62% Democrats and 65% Republicans. No-party preference turnout was 37%.

Troise is a Santa Ynez resident, married, with two kids in college. He has assembled a non-conventional political team. The entire original team, he said, was fired.

His new campaign manager is Dave King, the mayor of Buellton.

“He’s built up a business, and realistically when you get someone in a political position, when they have a business savvy, that’s the way county, state, the federal government should be run,” King said. “Too many people get involved in politics and it’s all about emotions and they make decisions based on their emotions and feelings, but it may have an adverse effect on the economy.”

He is also working with heavy-hitting political consultant Chris Collier.

“Every campaign consultant that came to us came to us with the exact same plan that they ran for both Bruce Porter’s campaigns,” Troise said. “It was ‘here’s some lawn signs, here’s some slates,’ etc.; it’s failed twice.”

He said it didn’t make sense for him to do the same thing that failed in two previous campaigns.

Troise said he was happy when Lompoc mayor Osborne jumped into the race. Osborne is a No Party Preference, and Troise said Republicans won’t vote for her. He said Osborne has been supported by the Democratic Party in the past and that she pulls from Democratic voters.

Troise said “the incumbent” has a problem because she doesn’t know how much money he is going to spend.

“For us, we looked at it as we don’t have two people opposing us, we have the same person opposing us,” Troise said. “Both of them are politicians.”