California Senate District 19 election: Middleton vs. Ochoa Bogh voter guide

Democrat Lisa Middleton is challenging Republican state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh for the Inland Empire’s Senate District 19 spot.

The race could be among the closest in the state Legislature this year: In the primary election, Ochoa Bogh won 54% of the vote to Middleton’s 46%.

Both represent historical firsts for the California Legislature: In 2020, Ochoa Bogh became the first Republican Latina elected to the state Senate, and Middleton would be the first out transgender state lawmaker if she wins in November.

Who are the candidates?

Middleton, 72, is former mayor of Palm Springs, where she currently serves as a City Council member. She previously worked for California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund, where she oversaw fraud cases.

Her goals include creating more jobs and affordable housing, fixing roads, protecting reproductive rights and demanding accountability for state spending on issues such as homelessness.

Ochoa Bogh, 52, is a former teacher, real estate agent and Yucaipa school board member. She sits on the Senate Education and Housing committees and has written bills signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom that support mental health providers and give military personnel free admission to fairs.

Her goals include lowering gas taxes, cracking down on border security and fighting for more “parental rights” in public schools.

Where is the district?

The new Senate District 19, reshaped in recent redistricting using census data, includes swaths of Riverside and San Bernardino counties and is home to more than half of a million voters.

The district encompasses Republican areas in the high desert and Inland Empire as well as liberal cities such as Palm Springs.

Entire cities in the district include Barstow, Big Bear Lake, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert and Yucaipa. Some of the cities partially within the district are Hemet, Loma Linda and Redlands.

Proposition 3

California voters will decide in November whether to reaffirm marriage rights in the state Constitution and repeal an outdated provision that still defines marriage as between a man and woman.

Middleton, who married her wife in 2013, supports the Proposition 3, and on the campaign trail has been urging others to do the same.

“My marriage was at stake and so many others — I will stand up for our marriage, I will stand up for every marriage,” she said this spring at a campaign event in Palm Springs.

Ochoa Bogh abstained from voting on the measure when it left the state Legislature this year, as did several other fellow Republicans.

She told The Times that she did not support the proposition language because it didn’t include a provision to ensure churches won’t be forced to conduct marriage ceremonies that they don’t agree with.

“We have a right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, whatever that may look like, as long as it doesn’t infringe on someone else’s ability to do the same,” Ochoa Bogh said of her stance on LGBTQ+ rights. “I would never do anything that would be disrespectful to anyone’s life or choices. We all have family members of that nature.”

Abortion

Middleton is endorsed by Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Freedom for All California, and has made abortion rights a key tenet of her campaign for state Senate.

She has vowed to increase funding for reproductive health clinics, expand access to birth control medication and in vitro fertilization and protect those who travel from red states to California to seek abortions.

“It’s time that we let people make decisions for themselves that are absolutely fundamental to their lives,” Middleton said.

Ochoa Bogh opposed Proposition 1, approved by voters in 2022 to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution following the Supreme Court’s undoing of Roe vs. Wade, which had long legalized abortion nationwide.

She received a 0% score from Planned Parenthood for her legislative record last year, and wrote a bill that would have mandated that schools teach about antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers. The bill failed to reach the governor’s desk