Kathryn Lybarger
Kathryn Lybarger (Democratic Party) ran for election to the California State Senate to represent District 7. She lost in the primary on March 5, 2024.
Lybarger completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Kathryn Lybarger graduated from Notre Dame High School. She earned a bachelor's degree from Earlham College in 1988 and a graduate degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1996. Her career experience includes working as a vice president and union federation president. She has been affiliated with California Labor Federation and AFSCME Local 3299.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: California State Senate elections, 2024
General election
General election for California State Senate District 7
Jesse Arreguín defeated Jovanka Beckles in the general election for California State Senate District 7 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jesse Arreguín (D) | 57.2 | 199,423 |
 | Jovanka Beckles (D) | 42.8 | 149,415 | |
| Total votes: 348,838 | |||
 = 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. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for California State Senate District 7
The following candidates ran in the primary for California State Senate District 7 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jesse Arreguín (D) | 32.1 | 61,892 |
| ✔ | | Jovanka Beckles (D) | 17.7 | 34,085 |
 | Dan Kalb (D) | 15.0 | 28,881 | |
 | Kathryn Lybarger (D) | 14.6 | 28,070 | |
 | Sandré Swanson (D) | 11.9 | 22,907 | |
 | Jeanne Solnordal (R) | 8.7 | 16,855 | |
| Total votes: 192,690 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Campaign finance
Endorsements
To view Lybarger's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Lybarger in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kathryn Lybarger completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Lybarger's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
Kathryn has led historic victories - higher minimum wages, overtime pay for farmworkers, equal pay for women, and lower prescription drug costs.
“I represent a union of service workers - women and men who wear hospital scrubs and work gloves. We keep the 10 University of California campuses and 5 medical centers running and take care of millions of Californians every year.”
As President of the California Labor Federation, which represents over 2.1 million workers in 1,200 locals across the state, Kathryn has pushed California to be a leader on essential bread and butter issues.
In the State Senate, Kathryn will build more affordable housing, clean energy infrastructure, and invest in workforce development.
And as she campaigns for the State Senate, Kathryn will lead statewide ballot campaigns to extend basic labor standards, protect organizing rights for working people, and remove the ban on marriage equality from California’s Constitution.
Kathryn and her wife have lived in Berkeley for the past 23 years where their children attended public schools.- My wife is a public school special ed teacher. We raised a son and a daughter who both chose college, but there are high quality union jobs in the crafts and trades that are often a better option. I lead a union of working-class people, and in the State Senate, I will lead California to prepare young people for college or blue-collar jobs that should be great jobs. I am committed to fully funding our schools – our teachers, staff, infrastructure and students. This is an investment in California’s future and deserves full, dedicated funding.
- California’s crushing housing affordability crisis is pushing working families out of their communities, stifling the economic mobility of those who can stay, and pushing people onto the streets. There are solutions to this. That means raising wages, streamlining affordable development, strong safety standards and labor protections, and social housing that offers deep and durable affordability. I am leading my union in negotiating first-time homeownership opportunities for working families so that they can live where they work. In the State Senate, I will continue to lead on creating housing opportunities for all Californians.
- Californians deserve good jobs with a living wage, job security, benefits, and a dignified retirement. As technology, environmental impacts, and the market change, we will have to fight to ensure that working families don’t get left behind. California brags about having the 4th largest economy in the world, but it never mentions having the highest poverty rate in America. Workers should never bear the economic burden while corporations get richer. As a union leader I led one of the largest strikes in our state and protected our jobs from outsourcing. We have to stop taking jobs away in the name of “efficiency”. As your senator, I will continue to prioritize closing the gender and racial pay gap and expand equal pay for women in California.
We were reminded occasionally that we were a couple with fewer rights than other couples, but we had loving families, a supportive community, and felt normal. My anger at the state shifted to indifference. Still, given the chance in 2004 to gain equal legal status for our relationship, we rushed to it. Our officiant at SF City Hall was the first single father - and gay man - to adopt a child in California. As he pronounced us, by the power vested in him by the State of California, spouses for life, I was shaken. In this moment I experienced actual equality and the full realization of its opposite. The world opened and raised my expectations; I resolved to never go back.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
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
|
Candidate California State Senate District 7 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 6, 2024
