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Daniel Martinez
Daniel Martinez (Republican Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent California's 31st Congressional District. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Biography
Daniel Martinez was born in Pasadena, California. He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and philosophy from the University of San Diego in 2006 and a law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law in 2009. He has worked as an attorney, founded the nonprofit Near-Infinity Art, and served as an educator at Damien High School, where he led a mentorship program for the debate team.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: California's 31st Congressional District election, 2024
California's 31st Congressional District election, 2024 (March 5 top-two primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House California District 31
Gil Cisneros defeated Daniel Martinez in the general election for U.S. House California District 31 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Gil Cisneros (D)  | 59.7 | 148,095 |
 | Daniel Martinez (R) | 40.3 | 99,856 | |
| Total votes: 247,951 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House California District 31
The following candidates ran in the primary for U.S. House California District 31 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Gil Cisneros (D) | 23.6 | 23,888 |
| ✔ | | Daniel Martinez (R) | 19.2 | 19,464 |
| Pedro Casas (R) | 16.9 | 17,077 | ||
 | Susan Rubio (D) | 15.8 | 16,006 | |
 | Bob Archuleta (D) | 10.0 | 10,151 | |
 | Mary Ann Lutz (D) | 6.5 | 6,629 | |
 | Gregory Hafif (D) | 4.9 | 4,914 | |
 | Kurt Jose (D) | 1.4 | 1,415 | |
 | Erskine Levi (No party preference) | 1.2 | 1,166 | |
 | Y. Marie Manvel (No party preference) | 0.5 | 534 | |
| Total votes: 101,244 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Ricardo Vazques (D)
- Elvira Moreno (R)
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Martinez in this election.
2022
See also: California's 31st Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House California District 31
Incumbent Grace Napolitano defeated Daniel Martinez in the general election for U.S. House California District 31 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Grace Napolitano (D) | 59.5 | 91,472 |
| Daniel Martinez (R) | 40.5 | 62,153 | |
| Total votes: 153,625 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House California District 31
Incumbent Grace Napolitano and Daniel Martinez defeated Rocco Anthony De Luca and Erskine Levi in the primary for U.S. House California District 31 on June 7, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Grace Napolitano (D) | 55.5 | 49,415 |
| ✔ | | Daniel Martinez (R) | 36.7 | 32,721 |
 | Rocco Anthony De Luca (D) | 7.8 | 6,948 | |
| Erskine Levi (No party preference) (Write-in) | 0.0 | 17 | |
| Total votes: 89,101 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Carolyn Covell (R)
- Jennifer Duffy (D)
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Daniel Martinez did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign website
Martinez's campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
Veteran Support Dedicated to improvement the mental health of veterans and others in need. On veteran suicide, for several years Dan has worked actively with a community that assists veterans with PTSD/suicide mitigation and re-integration into society. Twenty-two (22) veterans take their lives each day. This is an unacceptable failure of those who lead our country to fulfill the social contract we made with each of those young people when they put their bodies, minds, and spirit on the line for their country. On this account alone, each incumbent should be removed from office immediately. Or they should make it a number one priority. There are treatments in Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies at the FDA that have effective reduction rates that can exceed 70%. That these life-saving treatments, administered by a psychiatric professional, are kept out of the reach of our veterans is simply unconscionable. Government Reform If your government knows and you want to know, you should know. The classification system is abused beyond comprehension and the public has a right to know the vast majority of what is being withheld. I support a complete prohibition on stock trades for Representatives and their spouses, and enhancements to the ban on insider trading for anyone who derives information from a member of Congress or anyone in their family. The House of Representatives writes the rules. Members should refrain from playing the game at the same time. Should they wish to play the game again, they should immediately resign from their position overseeing the rules. Within the House of Representatives, my proposed solution is structural. Each individual Representative has been stripped of the tools necessary to properly advocate on behalf of their constituents: 1. Subpoena power - limited to the Congressional District, committees of membership, and by approval of the Speaker of the House; Legislative floor access to any member of the house who gets 45% co-sponsors on any particular piece of legislation that seeks to address a community need within their district. 2. At present, these two powers have been stripped from 95% of the representatives in the house. In so doing, 95% of the population has been disenfranchised from effective representation in the “People’s House.” Support Open Primaries, Ranked Choice Voting, Voter ID, and an independent verification system where voters can ensure their votes are counted accurately. Transparency and accountability across the board. Homelessness We need a more comprehensive analysis My district is a suburb of Los Angeles, a city whose reputation for the exponential growth of its homeless population is known the world over. The City and County of Los Angeles are far more likely to actively interfere with any proposed solutions, than be of assistance. As representative, I would use the inherent subpoena power of the office to demand answers on where the billions in tax dollars that have been spent on the problem have disappeared, yet the problem grows worse. Additionally, non-profit community groups and community churches need to be empowered to implement programs that attempt to address any of a set category of defined issues (homelessness, addiction, veteran suicide, education, etc.). This should include regulatory relief from abusive local zoning and ordinance rules that too often add tens of thousands in costs, and an unquantifiable amount of uncertainty on when, or even if, they will be allowed to attempt their solution to the problem. The government should be removing obstacles from good ideas and helping their proponents to get over the regulatory finish line as soon as possible. It should not be placing superfluous and artificial barriers to actual solutions implemented by community members who are fed up with inaction by their local government.[2] |
” |
| —Daniel Martinez's campaign website (2024)[3] | ||
2022
Daniel Martinez did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign website
Martinez's campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
Immigration Reform A "hot button" topic. The majorities on both the left and the right can agree that the issue of immigration reform needs to be addressed. The problem then arises from the implementation of a solution, which is where the blame lies entirely at the feet of congressional leadership of both parties. The general concerns and focus of the left, as I understand it as a first-generation American born of immigrants, is to ensure that those individual human beings who have effectively lived here for X number of years, and live in the shadows, and can’t buy property or invest into the economy, should be treated with dignity and respect and be allowed to live a life as equal to any other legal resident of this country. The general concerns and focus of the people associated on the right are predominantly focused on the issue of citizenship: 1. the inability to remove the individual to their home country for commission of a crime, and... 2. the “political suicide” of adding net 8M+ voters into the opposing party, relegating them to permanent minority status. For some reason, the “all or nothing” proposition on offer includes citizenship. It’s called a poison pill. Included by party leadership on an issue that they’d rather use as a culture war divider to incentivize us to hate each other. In my practice, I asked every one of my undocumented clients if they would accept an offer of legalized status with no pathway to citizenship, fine/back-taxes, and risk of deportation for DUI and above. Not one would have turned down the options. As for citizenship options, those remain the same as they are today. They can marry a US citizen, or have children in the country who one day petition for their citizenship. Extending an explicit pathway to citizenship in this bill is, not simply unnecessary, it is an active impediment to a reform that could pass the House of Representatives as currently constituted and can remove this issue from the culture war permanently. True lefties get most of what they want, in that millions of people come out of the shadows and can near-fully participate in our society in every way. The sole exception being the right to vote. We should not be using the group of human beings suffering “in the shadows” as human bargaining chips in a wider debate about reforming our process of granting citizenship.
Locally speaking... My district is a suburb of Los Angeles, a city whose reputation for the exponential growth of its homeless population is known the world over. The City and County of Los Angeles are far more likely to actively interfere with any proposed solutions, than be of assistance. As representative, I would use the inherent subpoena power of the office to demand answers on where the billions in tax dollars that have been spent on the problem have disappeared, yet the problem grows worse. Additionally, non-profit community groups and community churches need to be empowered to implement programs that attempt to address any of a set category of defined issues (homelessness, addiction, veteran suicide, education, etc.). This should include regulatory relief from abusive local zoning and ordinance rules that too often add tens of thousands in costs, and an unquantifiable amount of uncertainty on when, or even if, they will be allowed to attempt their solution to the problem. The government should be removing obstacles from good ideas and helping their proponents to get over the regulatory finish line as soon as possible. It should not be placing superfluous and artificial barriers to actual solutions implemented by community members who are fed up with inaction by their local government.
22 per day. On veteran suicide, for several years I have worked actively with a community that assists veterans with PTSD/suicide mitigation and re-integration into society. Twenty-two veterans take their lives each day. This is an unacceptable failure of those who lead our country to fulfill the social contract we made with each of those young people when they put their bodies, minds, and spirit on the line for their country. On this account alone, each incumbent should be removed from office immediately. Or they should make it a number one priority. There are treatments in Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies at the FDA that have effective reduction rates that can exceed 70%. That these life-saving treatments, administered by a psychiatric professional, are kept out of the reach of our veterans is simply unconscionable.
Where is the Congressional Debate? Our culture has gotten unbelievably out of balance. We are presently engaged in a cold (likely sparky) proxy war with the nuclear armed Russian Federation. Where is the Congressional Debate? The constitution vests in the House of Representatives the exclusive power of initiating the process for War. Our founders recognized that the power to send the citizenry into harms way and to place the economy and treasury to purpose of war should be solely vested in the representatives of the people who will bear the brunt of those costs. For decades, the House of Representatives has been negligent in their responsibilities, often glad to deflect the accountability that would accompany a vote. One example of many shameful derelictions of duty.
Transparency and accountability. Within the House of Representatives, my proposed solution is structural. Each individual Representative has been stripped of the tools necessary to properly advocate on behalf of their constituents: 1. Subpoena power - limited to the Congressional District, committees of membership, and by approval of the Speaker of the House; 2. Legislative floor access to any member of the house who gets 45% co-sponsors on any particular piece of legislation that seeks to address a community need within their district. At present, these two powers have been stripped from 95% of the representatives in the house. In so doing, 95% of the population has been disenfranchised from effective representation in the “People’s House.” Support Open Primaries, Ranked Choice Voting, Voter ID, and an independent verification system where voters can ensure their votes are counted accurately. Transparency and accountability across the board. If your government knows and you want to know, you should know. The classification system is abused beyond comprehension and the public has a right to know the vast majority of what is being withheld. I support a complete prohibition on stock trades for Representatives and their spouses, and enhancements to the ban on insider trading for anyone who derives information from a member of Congress or anyone in their family. The House of Representatives writes the rules. Members should refrain from playing the game at the same time. Should they wish to play the game again, they should immediately resign from their position overseeing the rules.
Energy independence. If we want a reduction in Greenhouse gases and/or a reduction of dependence on despotic petro-states with horrendous human rights records, we need a long term plan towards energy independence. All sane plans must recognize certain truths. We have two main sources of energy: 1. nature-dependent (wind/solar/hydro) 2. nature independent (oil/gas/nuclear) In the nature-dependent category, we should maximally incentivize a domestic industrial/manufacturing base to bring all sources on line as soon as possible. However, given that nature is inherently unpredictable, we need to ensure domestic capacity to backup the entire electrical grid. Nuclear is cleaner than natural gas, which is cleaner than oil, which is cleaner than coal. Every $1 that gas prices rise, drains $100 billion/year from the pockets of working Americans and directs those funds to the shareholders of oil corporations, and into the coffers of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela. This is a level of leverage our leaders have given to foreigners who share little of our values and interests.[2] |
” |
| —Daniel Bocic Martinez's campaign website (2022)[4] | ||
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Daniel Martinez's campaign website, "About," accessed September 18, 2024
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Daniel Martinez's campaign website, "Issues," accessed September 18, 2024
- ↑ Dan Martinez 4 Congress, “Home,” accessed May 25, 2022
