Three men vie for Assembly District 27 seat spanning Fresno County

Fresno County voters will soon help choose who carries the Central Valley’s voice in Sacramento as Assembly District 27 heads into the June 2 primary. The seat stretches across parts of Fresno, Madera and Merced counties, including Fresno, Kerman, Mendota, Madera, Chowchilla, Atwater, Livingston, Los Banos, Merced and Winton, making the contest one of the region’s most consequential.

Three men are running to replace incumbent Democrat Esmeralda Soria, who is leaving the Assembly seat to run for the state Senate. Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco, former Merced Mayor Mike Murphy and Livingston City Councilmember Japjeet Singh Uppal all say they are ready to represent a district that is large, diverse and deeply tied to the Valley economy. The district covers 4,543.7 square miles and is home to an estimated 531,388 people, about 68% Hispanic, with a median household income of $66,677 and a poverty rate of 20.9%.

The race is shaping up around the issues that hit Fresno County households most directly: water, housing, affordability, health care and public safety. Pacheco has leaned on his years in Fresno County government and his background as a farmer and dairyman, saying he can speak for agriculture while pushing on affordability, water supply, education, housing and rural health care. Murphy is casting himself as an independent-minded Republican who wants more balance in Sacramento, with an emphasis on public safety, affordability and practical solutions. Uppal is focusing on health care access, housing costs and corruption, while arguing for working families, farmers and small businesses.

Those contrasts matter in a district where state decisions ripple quickly through farm towns and urban neighborhoods alike. Soria’s current role as chair of the Assembly Agriculture Committee underscores how central farm policy is to the seat, but the next assemblymember will also have to deal with the price of housing, access to doctors and the day-to-day cost of living across Fresno, Madera and Merced counties. For voters in places like Mendota, Livingston and south Fresno, the race is not about abstract ideology. It is about whether the next lawmaker can turn local complaints about water shortages, housing pressure and stretched family budgets into something Sacramento will act on.

Pacheco brings the deepest county-government record. He has served on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors since 2015, after earlier reporting said he first won a seat in 2014 and spent 12 years on the Kerman Unified School District Board of Trustees. Murphy and Uppal come from different corners of the district, but all three are asking the same question of voters: which candidate can translate Fresno County’s mix of agriculture, small-town government and fast-growing communities into real leverage in Sacramento.