Your guide to California’s 7th Assembly District race

Incumbent Assemblymember Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, faces Democratic challenger Amy Slavensky in the general election for California’s 7th Assembly District race.

Hoover flipped the seat from Democrat to Republican in 2022 and has since established a reputation as a moderate who brings bills with bipartisan support. Slavensky is the second Democrat to try and beat Hoover since he first won the seat.

Where is the district?

Assembly District 7 is located entirely within Sacramento County. Along with the cities of Citrus Heights, Folsom and Rancho Cordova, the district captures a number of unincorporated communities including Carmichael, Fair Oaks, Rosemont, North Highlands and McClellan Park. Its voter makeup leaned Democratic until 2020, when officials shifted Folsom into the district during the Legislature’s redistricting process, which occurs every ten years.

There are still more registered Democratic voters than Republicans, however. As of December 2025, the district held 299,372 registered voters. Of those, around 37% were registered as Democrats and 33% were registered as Republicans. Registered independent voters accounted for a little over 5%.

Who are the candidates?

Assemblymember Josh Hoover, who lives in Folsom, served as chief of staff to Kevin Kiley during the now-U.S. representative’s tenure as in the Assembly, which ended in 2022. Hoover was also a school board member for Folsom Cordova Unified School District around that time. His online biography touts that district’s distinction as the first in Sacramento County to bring students back to the classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Republican has sought to build a reputation as a legislator who can work across the political aisle, joining the Legislature’s bipartisan California Problem Solvers Caucus. He also hosts a politics podcast called Point of Order, about the Legislature and other issues.

In 2022, Hoover defeated sitting legislator Ken Cooley by just 1 percentage point in a race that took days to call. In 2024, he held off a challenge from Citrus Heights City Councilmember Porsche Middleton, winning by a little more than 7 percentage points, according to the election tracking site Ballotpedia.

Amy Slavensky spent 40 years working in California public schools, first as a teacher, then as a middle and elementary school principal, and then as superintendent, according to her campaign website biography. After retiring from the Amador County Unified School District in 2021, she returned to education in 2023 to serve as interim deputy superintendent for San Juan Unified School District.

Slavensky’s brother died after years of being homeless, she writes on her website, leaving her dedicated to expanding mental health treatment and housing programs. Healthcare access, women’s rights issues and “well-resourced” public schools are other leading issues she cites on her website.

Who is funding the race?

This story was originally published September 20, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Your guide to California’s 7th Assembly District race."