- Phlunté Riddle, Democrat, a former law enforcement officer and public safety commissioner.
Riddle, a state Board of Juvenile Hearings commissioner, formerly served as Holden’s district director and unsuccessfully ran in 2016 for the state’s 25th Senate District seat against Sen. Anthony Portantino. She is endorsed by Holden, the president of SEIU California and state Treasurer Fiona Ma.
She spent 30 years working up the ranks in the Pasadena Police Department, where she became the department’s first Black female sergeant, lieutenant and adjutant to the chief of police, according to her campaign website.
In her campaign biography, Riddle said she is most concerned about issues involving climate, education, homelessness, transportation and equal rights. Her campaign donors include several law enforcement groups, the SEIU union and a local chapter of Planned Parenthood.
Riddle lives in Pasadena.
- John Harabedian, Democrat, a former prosecutor.
Harabedian was raised in Sierra Madre, where he has worked as a prosecutor at the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. He was a Sierra Madre City Council member from 2012 to 2020. He ran unsuccessfully for L.A. County supervisor in 2020.
He said his main legislative interests include reducing homelessness, combating climate change, defending reproductive rights and preventing gun violence. “I believe every Californian should have an affordable place to live, a job that pays a livable wage, access to quality affordable healthcare, access to natural resources like clean water and open space to survive and thrive, and access to the best free education possible,” he said in a statement to The Times.
His campaign donors include the Smart Justice group that advocates for criminal justice reform as well as unions representing teachers, nurses and electricians. Harabedian is endorsed by several state senators and Assembly members, the United Nurses Assns. of California and California Environmental Voters.
He lives in Pasadena.
- Jed Leano, Democrat, an immigration attorney.
Leano is an immigration attorney and first-generation American, born to Filipino immigrants. Since 2018, he has served on the Claremont City Council, where he advocated for housing affordability and homelessness issues, according to his campaign website.
“I spearheaded the creation of Claremont’s Psychiatric Assessment Care Team (PACT), which responds to behavioral crisis calls. This groundbreaking program relieves the workload of public safety officers while streamlining mental health services,” Leano wrote in a Times questionnaire.
Leano’s campaign has received support from several housing organizations, including the YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) group, which advocates for developing more homes, and local tenants unions.
He lives in Claremont.
- Michelle Del Rosario Martinez, Republican, a community volunteer.
Martinez describes herself as the daughter of Peruvian immigrants. She was elected to the Altadena Town Council in 2014, where she said she helped launch new businesses in her district, according to her campaign biography. As a council member, she was quoted by The Times as saying that the GOP’s pro-business and low-tax agenda is good for California. Her biography states that she has lived in the district for most of her life and attended Pasadena schools.
She is endorsed by the California GOP. Martinez did not respond to The Times’ survey request.
