Michael Loebs

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

Michael Loebs

No party preference

Elections and appointments

Last election

September 14, 2021

Education

Associate

City College of San Francisco, 2005

Bachelor's

University of California, Berkeley, 2008

Graduate

San Francisco State University, 2011

Personal

Birthplace

Hayward, Calif.

Religion

Jewish

Profession

University lecturer

Contact

Campaign website

Personal website

Michael Loebs (No party preference) ran for election for Governor of California. He lost in the recall election on September 14, 2021.

Loebs completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Michael Loebs was born in Hayward, California. He received an associate degree from the City College of San Francisco in 2005, a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008, and a graduate's degree from San Francisco State University in 2011. Loebs' professional experience includes being a university lecturer for the department of political science at San Francisco State University. He became the chairperson of the California National Party in 2019.

Elections

2021

Gavin Newsom yes/no recall question

Gavin Newsom recall, 2021

Gavin Newsom won the Governor of California recall election on September 14, 2021.

			Recall  Vote	%	Votes
			Yes	38.1	4,894,473
		✔	No	61.9	7,944,092
			Total Votes		12,838,565

---

It has been certified. Source

Gavin Newsom replacement question

The ordering on the candidate list below does not reflect the order in which candidates will appear on the recall ballot. Click here to read Ballotpedia's policy on ordering candidate lists.

General election

Special general election for Governor of California

The following candidates ran in the special general election for Governor of California on September 14, 2021.

		Candidate	%	Votes
		Larry Elder (R)	48.4	3,563,867
		Kevin Paffrath (D)	9.6	706,778
		Kevin Faulconer (R)	8.0	590,346
		Brandon Ross (D)	5.3	392,029
		John Cox (R)	4.1	305,095
		Kevin Kiley (R)	3.5	255,490
		Jacqueline McGowan (D)	2.9	214,242
		Joel Ventresca (D)	2.5	186,345
		Daniel Watts (D)	2.3	167,355
		Holly Baade (D)	1.3	92,218
		Patrick Kilpatrick (D)	1.2	86,617
		Armando Perez-Serrato (D)	1.2	85,061
		Caitlyn Jenner (R)	1.0	75,215
		John Drake (D)	0.9	68,545
		Daniel Kapelovitz (G)	0.9	64,375
		Jeff Hewitt (L)	0.7	50,378
		Ted Gaines (R)	0.7	47,937
		Angelyne (No party preference)	0.5	35,900
		David Moore (No party preference)	0.4	31,224
		Anthony Trimino (R)	0.4	28,101
		Doug Ose (R) (Unofficially withdrew)	0.4	26,204
		Michael Loebs (No party preference)	0.3	25,468
		Heather Collins (G)	0.3	24,260
		Major Singh (No party preference)	0.3	21,394
		David Lozano (R)	0.3	19,945
		Denver Stoner (R)	0.3	19,588
		Samuel Gallucci (R)	0.2	18,134
		Steven Chavez Lodge (R)	0.2	17,435
		Jenny Rae Le Roux (R)	0.2	16,032
		David Bramante (R)	0.2	11,501
		Diego Martinez (R)	0.1	10,860
		Robert Newman (R)	0.1	10,602
		Sarah Stephens (R)	0.1	10,583
		Dennis Richter (No party preference)	0.1	10,468
		Major Williams (R) (Write-in)	0.1	8,965
		Denis Lucey (No party preference)	0.1	8,182
		James Hanink (No party preference)	0.1	7,193
		Daniel Mercuri (R)	0.1	7,110
		Chauncey Killens (R)	0.1	6,879
		Leo Zacky (R)	0.1	6,099
		Kevin Kaul (No party preference)	0.1	5,600
		David Hillberg (R)	0.1	4,435
		Adam Papagan (No party preference)	0.1	4,021
		Rhonda Furin (R)	0.1	3,964
		Nickolas Wildstar (R)	0.1	3,811
		Jeremiah Marciniak (No party preference)	0.0	2,894
		Joe Symmon (R)	0.0	2,397
	Submit photo	Miki Habryn (No party preference) (Write-in)	0.0	137
	Submit photo	Roxanne (D) (Write-in)	0.0	116
	Submit photo	Stacy Smith (D) (Write-in)	0.0	81
	Submit photo	Vivek Mohan (No party preference) (Write-in)	0.0	68
	Submit photo	Thuy Hugens (American Independent Party of California) (Write-in)	0.0	19
	Submit photo	Vince Lundgren (No party preference) (Write-in)	0.0	5

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 7,361,568
= 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

• Karen Blake (R)
• Mariana Dawson (No party preference)
• Veronika Fimbres (G)
• Elizabeth Floyd (No party preference)
• Wayne Frazier (R)
• Timothy Herode (R)
• Luis Huang (D)
• Jimih Jones (R)
• Paul Mesrop Kurdian (No party preference)
• Carla Canada (No party preference)
• Mary Cook (No party preference)
• Torr Leonard (D)
• Jeremy Lupoli (D)
• Louis J. Marinelli, III (R)
• Christopher Mason (R)
• John Pierce (R)
• Patrick Rakus Jr. (R)
• Frank Wade (D)
• Marc Roth (No party preference)
• Christopher Carlson (G)
• Douglas Deitch (D)
• Bryan Farley (D)
• Justin Hubbard (R)
• Jason Dixon (D)
• Sean Harrison (R)
• Ronald Palmieri (D)
• Ben Zandpour (No party preference)
• Robert Davidson Griffis (D)
• A. Shantz (G)
• Adam Hadjinian (No party preference)
• Michael Lynn Gabriel (No party preference)
• Hilaire Shioura (No party preference)
• Lee Olson (No party preference)
• Joseph Luciano (R)
• Steven Fitzgerald (R)
• Anthony Fanara (D)
• Jemiss Nazar (No party preference)
• Kevin Abushi (R)
• Joseph Amey (American Independent Party of California)

Endorsements

To view Loebs' endorsements in the 2021 election, please click here.

Campaign themes

2021

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Michael Loebs completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Loebs' 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.

Michael Loebs is a child of two Alameda county natives and has lived in California his entire life. From his father's family, who have been in the East Bay for well over a century, Michael learned about the culture, history, and complexity of his home. From his mother's parents—immigrants from Guangdong whose children and grandchildren have almost entirely remained in the Bay Area—he was taught that California is a land of possibilities.

At the age of fifteen, Michael began over a decade of work in the computer industry as a programmer while completing his undergraduate work in political science at UC Berkeley. He left that profession in 2009 to pursue graduate studies, working at various times in the hospitality, entertainment, and cannabis industries. After receiving his M.A. from San Francisco State University, he began teaching there as a lecturer in the Department of Political Science in 2013.

Raised as a Democrat, Michael joined the California National Party in 2016 when he realized that the constant fighting between the two federal parties over a power based 3000 miles away would prevent actually solving the unique and urgent issues facing California. He decided instead that it was the responsibility to Californians to focus on the problems of California, since no one will solve our problems unless we do so ourselves. Since 2019, he has been elected by fellow party members to serve as chairperson of the CNP.

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?

• Replace the current inefficient and wasteful EDD system with universal basic income, negative income tax, and automatic Medi-Cal enrollment for all Californians
• Government reform to increase effective representation in the state legislature and emphasis decision-making by locally accountable officials
• Secure California’s control over our land, water, natural resources, trade, and laws for the benefit of Californians, present and future

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

California's environment is quickly changing. Even those rejecting human-made climate change must accept that any study of the physical history of California will show that over time this region undergoes frequent geological and climatic changes. The California of today will not be California forever; it’s going to get hotter and drier in the next few decades, no matter what is done. Our policies at this point must reflect that reality, emphasizing rational water management, robust wildfire prevention, and in many cases managed retreat from coastlines. Wildfires must be taken seriously in California, not as an emergency aberration, but as a seasonal disaster like hurricanes or monsoons are in other places. This means funding professional, year-round emergency services such as fire and paramedics, especially in rural areas which are most directly affected. It means accepting the need for controlled burns and getting the 45% of California under federal control back to us so we can handle our own land management. Likewise, many of our water resources are under federal control and our water sold to multinational corporations for resale in small plastic bottles while we suffer through one of the worst droughts in memory. We need to keep our water for home use and economically incentivize sustainable, small-to-medium scale agriculture with more responsible water usage to assure the livelihood of the next generation of California agriculture.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

At the age of 15, immediately after leaving high school, I was hired as a web designer for a very small company in my hometown of Fremont, although I mostly just did maintenance of existing sites. My friend and I made $7 an hour, which we got bumped up to $8 after noticing that starting wage at a nearby Nation's Hamburgers was $7.50/hr. The company also basically invented an early version of Pandora, but who'd bother to use it with a 56k dial-up connection? I held that job for a year from 1997-1998 at the same time I started at Ohlone College.

What do you believe is the ideal relationship between the governor and state legislature?

The California Legislature is the ultimate representative law-making authority for the people of California. The duty of a governor is to execute those laws with an honest attempt to interpret the purpose behind those laws, while keeping in mind the collective good of California. In this sense, I think the governor should primarily be an administrator, not the centralized authority that too many Americans--and increasingly Californians--have come to desire in their chief executive. However, as the leading official elected statewide, the governor should seek to represent the complex and varied interests of California without preference or prejudice, and present a vision of action grounded in the best interests of the whole of California to the legislature, whose members are representatives of the area that elected them. In essence, the governor should be an administrator and representative, not a law-maker. Only under the most dire of need should a governor engage in prerogative action or ignore the stated will of the legislature or the people.

What do you love most about your state?

California is an amazing place that over time has become a land where anyone in the world can find a place for themselves. While we are by no means perfect and there is still work to be done, California is rapidly becoming an example of a modern, 21st century nation in which people of diverse backgrounds can cooperate in the civic project of building a shared California identity.

What do you perceive to be your state's greatest challenges over the next decade?

If tomorrow the entire world engaged in environmentally sustainable and responsible behavior in terms of production, transportation, agriculture, and many other areas, the next half century in California is likely to be a disaster. We are now feeling the effects of decisions made decades and the reality of reduced water capacity, a more destructive wildfire season, and coastal erosion. Whether we accept these changes in California as a result of human influenced climate change or part of natural changes that have taken place in California over the decades, it is clear that current California governments are failing to respond to this effectively and little to no assistance can be expected from the federal government. We must face this coming crisis realistic, with appropriate funding to especially rural communities than have been the most hard hit.

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.

See also

2021 Elections

What's on the ballot? U.S. Congress special elections State executives State legislatures State courts Ballot measures Municipal government School boards Election analysis hub

Government

Who represents me? U.S. Congress State executives State legislators State courts Ballot measures Municipal government School boards

Newsletters

Documenting America's Path to Recovery The Daily Brew The Weekly Brew The Ballot Bulletin Checks and Balances Economy and Society Hall Pass Number of the Day Robe & Gavel Union Station

External links

Search Google News for this topic

Candidate

Governor of California

Website

Personal

Website