Two familiar candidates are facing off for the State Assembly District 37 seat. 

Incumbent Assemblyman Gregg Hart, a Democrat, and Sari Domingues, a retired business analyst and Republican, are in the running to represent Santa Barbara County and a southern portion of San Luis Obispo County. 

The two candidates have already faced each other for the seat, that time in 2024.

Last week, Hart and Domingues participated in a virtual forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara to inform voters where they stand on a variety of issues, including affordability and housing.

Who are these candidates that voters will have to choose from in the primary election? 

Gregg Hart

Hart, 66, has held the seat since 2022 and is a Santa Barbara native. 

He attended Santa Barbara City College and graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in political science. 

Before holding the Assembly seat, he held various roles in local government. 

He was elected to the Santa Barbara City Council in 1995 and went on to serve four terms. He also was elected to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors in 2018 and served one term.

He previously worked as a legislative assistant for California Assemblyman Jack O’Connell and as deputy executive director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Government’s Traffic Solutions program. 

Additionally, Hart has owned a family business, Transitions Preschool, for more than 20 years, which he said gives him a unique perspective when tackling childcare issues at the state level. 

He is running for the Assembly again, he said, to continue building on his work. 

“The issues facing the state of California are so important now with the challenges we are facing from the federal government that I feel it is important for me to continue the work that I have been doing,” he said. 

Hart splits his time between Santa Barbara and Sacramento during the week.

Hart said he is most proud of his work with environmental issues, including the California Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies Program, being accessible to community members and fostering strong relationships with his Assembly colleagues. 

For his re-election, affordability, housing and the environment are top issues for him. 

“I have legislation in all of those areas, and I am working to advance those issues every day,” he said.

Another focus for Hart is immigration. 

“I am working with my colleagues on legislation to try and insulate California as best we can,” he said. 

Hart said he and his colleagues are trying to create laws to protect immigrants by “creating better privacy of public records, safe spaces at schools and making sure that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can’t operate in places where children are.”

Hart has been endorsed by multiple state Assembly members, statewide organizations, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and local organizations and leaders. 

“I am available, accessible and work really hard and enjoy my work because we have one of the most beautiful places in the state of California,” he said. 

When he is not working, Hart spends his time visiting national parks in the United States with the goal to visit them all. He has already visited 48 parks.

Sari Domingues

Domingues, 69, is a former business analyst and Santa Maria native. 

She worked as a business analyst in Monterey County for more than 12 years and previously as a computer specialist in Santa Barbara County for more than 11 years. 

After raising her three sons, Joseph, Jerick and Andrew, Domingues went back to school.

She holds two associate degrees in liberal arts and information systems from Allan Hancock College, a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of La Verne and a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Chapman University. 

“I am not a politician,” she said. “I retired quite a few years ago to take care of my mother and mother-in-law because they were getting ill.”

After serving as a caretaker, she began to look toward the next chapter of her life.

“I started noticing and really thinking about what’s going on with our politics,” she said. 

When her sons were young, Domingues was heavily involved in school matters, serving with the Parent Teacher Association. 

She also founded a Santa Barbara County Moms For Liberty chapter in 2023, which focuses on “fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”

She considers herself a conservative and has run for the seat before, against Hart. This time around, she said she has been studying Hart’s voting record. 

“I do not agree on more than 80% of the things he has been voting on,” Domingues said.

For the past three years, she said she has been watching the Assembly’s decisions and attending committee meetings in Sacramento. 

“I am glad I am running because there are a lot of things that we need to stop,” Domingues said.

She is running on a platform that prioritizes issues regarding education, family, safety and economics. 

On the education subject, she pledges to increase test scores and stop “inappropriate” subjects such as ethnic and LGBTQ+ studies from being taught in primary education.

“What (the schools) were doing with it, my perception, is that they are talking about ethnicities and how badly they are treated,” she said. “I understand that it is true — half of me is Portuguese, half of me is Hispanic and Indigenous American.”

With safety, she wants to re-create the vibrancy of her childhood, recalling how she would hop on her bike on Saturday mornings and hang out with her neighborhood friends all day.

“We need to get back to where we feel like our children can go run to a park and meet with their friends and play,” she said. 

She proposes to do that by working with law enforcement to reduce crimes.   

While retired, Domingues often takes care of her 3-year-old granddaughter, the youngest of her five grandchildren, during the week, but she said she is ready to switch up her life if elected.

“I am passionate about District 37,” she said. “I don’t have to do this. My husband and I are retired, but I have a passion to make sure we all live that American Dream.”

Domingues has been endorsed by the local and state Republican Party, elected officials such as Santa Barbara County Supervisor Bob Nelson and other Assembly members. 

She also shared that the day before the primary election, June 2, she and her husband, Joe, will celebrate 52 years of marriage.

Voting

Since Hart and Domingues are the only two candidates running for the District 37 seat, both will progress to the November general election ballot, when voters will make the final decision.

Vote-by-mail ballots have already begun going out to active registered voters. Voters have the option of voting in-person or by mail. 

Martin Cobos, chief deputy registrar of voters, encourages voters to bring their ballot into a post office and ask a clerk to postmark it if they wait until a few days before the election to send it off in the mail.