Luis Rodriguez (California)

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Luis Rodriguez

Green Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

June 7, 2022

Personal

Birthplace

El Paso, Texas

Profession

Writer

Contact

Campaign website

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Luis Rodriguez (Green Party) ran for election for Governor of California. He lost in the primary on June 7, 2022.

Rodriguez completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.

Rodriguez was also a Green Party candidate for Governor of California in the 2014 elections.

Biography

Luis Rodriguez was born in El Paso, Texas. Rodriguez's career experience includes working as a poet, an author, and a script consultant. He co-founded and has served as president of the board of Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore.

Elections

2022

See also: California gubernatorial election, 2022

General election

General election for Governor of California

Incumbent Gavin Newsom defeated Brian Dahle in the general election for Governor of California on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Gavin Newsom (D)	59.2	6,470,104
		Brian Dahle (R)	40.8	4,462,914

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 10,933,018
= 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 Governor of California

The following candidates ran in the primary for Governor of California on June 7, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Gavin Newsom (D)	55.9	3,945,748
✔		Brian Dahle (R)	17.7	1,252,800
		Michael Shellenberger (Independent)	4.1	290,286
		Jenny Rae Le Roux (R)	3.5	246,665
		Anthony Trimino (R)	3.5	246,322
		Shawn Collins (R)	2.5	173,083
		Luis Rodriguez (G)	1.8	124,672
		Leo Zacky (R)	1.3	94,521
		Major Williams (R)	1.3	92,580
		Robert Newman (R)	1.2	82,849
		Joel Ventresca (D)	0.9	66,885
		David Lozano (R)	0.9	66,542
	Submit photo	Ronald Anderson (R)	0.8	53,554
		Reinette Senum (Independent)	0.8	53,015
		Armando Perez-Serrato (D)	0.6	45,474
		Ron Jones (R)	0.5	38,337
		Daniel Mercuri (R)	0.5	36,396
		Heather Collins (G)	0.4	29,690
		Anthony Fanara (D)	0.4	25,086
		Cristian Morales (R)	0.3	22,304
		Lonnie Sortor (R)	0.3	21,044
		Frederic Schultz (Independent)	0.2	17,502
		Woodrow Sanders III (Independent)	0.2	16,204
		James Hanink (Independent)	0.1	10,110
		Serge Fiankan (Independent)	0.1	6,201
		Bradley Zink (Independent)	0.1	5,997
	Submit photo	Jeff Scott (American Independent Party of California) (Write-in)	0.0	13
	Submit photo	Gurinder Bhangoo (R) (Write-in)	0.0	8

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 7,063,888
= 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

• Errol Webber (R)
• Laura Smith (R)
• Chaz Flemmings (Independent)
• John Drake (D)
• Mohammad Arif (D)
• Hilaire Shioura (Independent)

Endorsements

To view Rodriguez's endorsements in the 2022 election, please click here.

2014

See also: California Gubernatorial election, 2014

Rodriguez ran for election to the office of Governor of California. Rodriguez sought one of the two possible nominations in the primary on June 3, 2014. The general election took place on November 4, 2014.

Governor of California, Blanket Primary, 2014
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Jerry Brown Incumbent	54.3%	2,354,769
	Republican	Neel Kashkari	19.4%	839,767
	Republican	Tim Donnelly	14.8%	643,236
	Republican	Andrew Blount	2.1%	89,749
	Republican	Glenn Champ	1.8%	76,066
	Green	Luis Rodriguez	1.5%	66,876
	Peace and Freedom	Cindy L. Sheehan	1.2%	52,707
	Republican	Alma Marie Winston	1.1%	46,042
	Nonpartisan	Robert Newman	1%	44,120
	Democratic	Akinyemi Agbede	0.9%	37,024
	Republican	Richard Aguirre	0.8%	35,125
	Nonpartisan	"Bo" Bogdan Ambrozewicz	0.3%	14,929
	Nonpartisan	Janel Hyeshia Buycks	0.3%	12,136
	Nonpartisan	Rakesh Kumar Christian	0.3%	11,142
	Nonpartisan	Joe Leicht	0.2%	9,307
Total Votes				4,332,995
Election results California Secretary of State

Race background

Democratic incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown was elected to a record-breaking fourth non-consecutive term in the office.

Including Brown, 15 candidates filed for the June 3 California gubernatorial primary election. Laguna Hills Mayor Andrew Blount (R) withdrew from the race one month before the primary due to health issues. Bount's exit left a total of 14 candidates.

Throughout the primary campaign season, polls underscored projections that Brown would win another four-year term as California's chief executive in 2014. A Field Poll released in early April put Brown ahead of Tim Donnelly by a 40 percent margin. Brown drew 57 percent to Donnelly's 17 percent, with ex-candidate Blount at 3 percent and Kashkari at 2 percent. The final poll before the primary conducted for USC and the Los Angeles Times had Kashkari second place overall at 18 percent, with Donnelly at 13 percent and Brown at 50 percent.

The California gubernatorial race was rated by the Cook Political Report as "Solid Democratic." Brown defeated Republican challenger Neel Kashkari in the November 4 general election by an 18 percent margin.

Polls

General election

Governor of California
Poll	Jerry Brown * (D)	Neel Kashkari (R)	Undecided/Other	Margin of error	Sample size
New York Times/CBS News/YouGov October 16-23	55%	37%	9%	+/-2	7,463
Note: The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org.

Primary and hypothetical match-ups

Governor of California
Poll	Jerry Brown* (D)	Tim Donnelly (R)	Neel Kashkari (R) (Not included in Poll 1 or 3)	Undecided	Margin of error	Sample size
USC/LA Times Poll May 21-28, 2014	50%	13%	18%	10%	+/-4.4	671
Survey USA/KABC/KFSN/KGTV/KPIX May 16-19, 2014	57%	18%	11%	10%	+/-4.0	610
Public Policy Institute of California May 8-16, 2014	48%	15%	10%	27%	+/-3.6	1,702
Public Policy Institute of California April 8-15, 2014	46%	9%	2%	38%	+/-5.1	944
The Field Poll March 18-April 5, 2014	57%	17%	2%	20%	+/-4.5	504
Public Policy Institute of California March 11-18, 2014	47%	10%	2%	36%	+/-4.7	936
Public Policy Institute of California January 14-21, 2014	53%	17%	0%	28%	+/-3.8	1,151
The Field Poll November 15-December 3, 2014	52%	9%	3%	25%	+/-3.5	836
Public Policy Institute of California November 12-19, 2013	46%	16%	0%	29%	+/-4.5	1,081
AVERAGES	50.67%	13.78%	5.33%	24.78%	+/-4.23	937.22
Note: The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org.

Note: An asterisk (*) denotes incumbent status.

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Luis Rodriguez completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Rodriguez's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I’m your social, environmental, economic, and health justice candidate, endorsed by the Green, Peace & Freedom, Justice parties, and Left Unity Slate, among others. We need a dynamic shift in how we think, act, and govern.

It’s time to stop hacking at the branches and get to the root. It's time to align resources to meet people’s needs and end poverty. I am for single-payer universal healthcare; affordable, safe housing; a Green New Deal to confront climate change; free, quality education; arts in every neighborhood; ending mass incarceration and deadly police practices; mental health & addiction treatment on demand; fair and equal elections by proportional representation; livable wage jobs, worker rights, and universal basic income.

From a troubled teen to an organizer for deep social change, I’ve prepared a lifetime for this challenge. I’ve been a steelworker to a construction worker. I’ve fought in major union battles. I’ve worked for 50 years with disaffected youth, the unhoused, the incarcerated, the undocumented, and Indigenous Peoples. I’m a writer and poet, author of 16 books, and co-founder of a thriving healing arts center and bookstore.

I’m ready to dream and deliver. Join me in creating a new California for shared well-

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• It's time to align resources to meet people’s needs and end poverty. I am for single-payer universal healthcare; affordable, safe housing;
• Free, quality education; arts in every neighborhood; fair and equal elections by proportional representation;
• Ending mass incarceration and deadly police practices; mental health & addiction treatment on demand;

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

California needs a big dream as well as a big delivery. My campaign is a shift in how we govern, a systemic reset for justice, where the residents most impacted by the widening gaps and empties in the environment, economy, health, or social relations should be empowered and emboldened to lead.

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 website

Rodriguez's campaign website stated the following:

“	Vision “Imagine a New California for Shared Well-Being. Then Let's Build It!” California needs a big dream as well as a big delivery. My campaign is a shift in how we govern, a systemic reset for justice, where the residents most impacted by the widening gaps and empties in the environment, economy, health, or social relations should be empowered and emboldened to lead. Pillars The four pillars of my campaign support the above-described vision. They are interconnected, interdependent. You can’t have one without the others. Environmental Justice: A Green New Deal for California. End of fossil fuel industries. No more poisoned air, water, and land. Provide equity in food production and distribution, including to those who work the land, pick the fruits and vegetables, and who deliver all this to our stores and homes. Provide renewable energy sources to everyone, including affordable solar power. Work with Indigenous peoples on environmental protections. A healthy and safe environment for all. Economic Justice: End poverty, end homelessness. We need a government that provides resources to meet the needs of the most vulnerable residents who have fallen through the cracks of a broken system and inequitable economy. Remove the profiteering linked to our health, our addictions, our housing, our food, our schools, and other necessities. The most impacted must lead. The power must be in the hands of the people. Give us “the hammer and nails” and we will rebuild our communities! Health Justice: Address the COVID pandemic and masking issues with a coherent and best-informed policy around work, opening of schools, commerce, and social interactions. Vaccination mandates as needed. Bring in a single-payer health care system. “Medicare for all” on a state level as a model for the whole country. Include psychological health in all health care decisions. Protect front-line health workers. Provide living pay and full benefits to anyone in the healthcare field. Social and Electoral Justice. End discrimination in jobs, housing, schooling, and education. Black Lives Matter. Protect and integrate undocumented residents with dignity. End all hate-based attacks. Provide free universal quality education for all. Institute full Ethnic Studies and Critical Race Studies. End the use of militarized policing and deadly force. Bring in restorative/transformative justice programs. End mass incarceration. Turn the $18.6 billion prison budget to rehabilitation, as well as drug and mental health care treatment on demand. The formerly incarcerated need jobs and training. Also, implement full and fair representation for all—we need more voices, more choices. Proportional representation and ranked voting. End corporate control of the electoral process. Campaign financing reform. Include all residents, including migrants and immigrants. All must be heard, seen, and respected. Access to the arts in every neighborhood, in every corner: public art, music, theaters, cultural cafes, galleries, arts education, movie houses, museums, festivals, and more—don’t just concentrate the arts in museum rows, downtowns, beaches. PRINCIPLES Here are key principles behind our vision and solutions: The most impacted should lead: Solutions must come from the unhoused, the unschooled, the unemployed, the unheard. Solutions should be driven by the community working alongside the most conscious and caring professionals. Our solutions should be family and community driven. Distribute the social wealth to meet needs, not profits. End the “poverty of access.” Fix our communities, homes, streets, byways, rivers, and other infrastructure, but keep families and communities intact. Train generations of leaders from among those most affected by the crises. Imagine first, imagine big: When it comes to governance, we tend to be limited in our thinking and our actions. Scarcity, which is endemic to capitalism, determines the limitations of what we imagine and what we do. To govern adequately for shared well-being, we need a full imagination to ensure full implementation. Abundance not scarcity. We need to be realistic, but also poetic blossoming. Again, the big dream and the big delivery. Alignment: Much of governance is proper alignment of revenues and resources to needs. The first need is human wellbeing. But this cannot be done in a vacuum. For humans to thrive they need a healthy environment, healthy relations, healthy interactions. Good and complete healthcare from cradle to grave. We will work for the respectful and meaningful relationship to nature, our own natures, the nature of our relationship, and to freedom from want. Technology should be in accord with nature: We live in a post-industrial world that is undergone and undergoing a massive shift from industrial production to digital production. California’s Silicon Valley is the heart of a global technological revolution. One key principle is that technology must be in accord with nature, not against it. Climate change has been predicated on the dangers of the extraction industries and manufacturing. Advanced technology can solve most if not all human need, but, again, it must align to well-being--of the environment and of people. Our consciousness, plans, and actions must be aligned with the objective revolution in economies and technology: We are living in revolutionary times, not seen at this level since the shift of agriculture to industry. Our understanding, our social knowledge, the wisdom of this age, must correspond to the level of what’s moving forward. But along with this is our human heritage of being methodical, careful, always compassionate. Detached from these, when only predicated on profits and power for the few, we cause more suffering, more deaths, more environmental disasters. As our tools and technologies advance, we need to make sure our relationships, our caring, our expansive ways of thinking and doing, advance as well, commensurate to the challenge. Stop dancing around the problems; stop managing the crisis: Billions upon billions of dollars, including billions of tax dollars, are spent on “managing” crisis. Whether it’s the COVID pandemic, economic displacement, crime, or environmental upheaval, we must not just throw money at the problem, just placing “band-aids” here and there. We need qualitative and strategic changes, not just quantitative or tactical ones. We must go to the roots, to deal with the underlying motive forces, not just the features of things. As crime rises, we can’t just deal with this on the “back end”—after the thefts, attacks, murders, and such have happened. When we place our revenues and energies on the “front end,” we deal with much less as a result.	”
—Luis Rodriguez's campaign website (2022)

Campaign finance summary

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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.

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Luis Rodriguez campaign contribution history

Year	Office	Status	Contributions	Expenditures
2022	Governor of California	Lost primary	$0	$0
2014	Governor of California	Lost	$24,415	N/A**
Grand total			$24,415	N/A**
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
** Data on expenditures is not available for this election cycle
Note: Totals above reflect only available data.

Personal

Rodriguez is married to his third wife, Trini Rodriguez. He has four children: Ramiro, Andrea, Ruben and Luis.

See also

2022 Elections

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