Your guide to California Assembly’s 5th District primary race
In the 5th Assembly District, Neva Parker and Joe Patterson face off again, following their 2024 race that ended with Patterson’s victory with 62% of the vote.
Both candidates previously worked as legislative staffers, though Patterson later served as mayor of Rocklin while also working as a gambling lobbyist before joining the Legislature. Parker has been involved in a couple of community governance groups since.
Now working as a community advocate for seniors, Parker says she has a better shot this time as she believes that ratepayers would be drawn to candidates who are more community focused and less partisan, especially at a time when many elected officials are “buying into foreign wars.”
Where is the district?
The 5th District spans parts of El Dorado and Placer counties.
Who are the candidates?
Born and raised in Hercules, Parker now lives in Roseville. Parker began her career at the Capitol as an intern, which then developed into more than two decades of public service until she left the Capitol in 2023. During her tenure at the Capitol, she worked as the Senate journal clerk, where she says she helped ensure the legislative process remained “fair, transparent and accessible,” according to her campaign website.
Parker aims to prioritize supporting small businesses and local jobs, describing them as “the backbone of our community,” while also reinforcing local control and affordability and focusing on addiction recovery reform. Parker is a member of the Roseville Grants Advisory Commission and the Placer County Older Adult Advisory Commission.
“Overall, people are concerned about paying for things, and how we do that and help get money in people’s pockets is (by) focusing on the job at hand,” Parker told The Sacramento Bee.
Parker is running as a Democrat.
Patterson is running for a third term representing the 5th District. Patterson started his state Legislature career after graduating and receiving a post-graduate fellowship from Sacramento State. He served as a legislative staffer and was appointed as the mayor for Rocklin in 2019 by the Rocklin City Council. He resigned from the position in 2022 to join the state Assembly. Patterson was also a gambling lobbyist from 2019 to 2022, CalMatters’ data shows.
At the Legislature, Patterson was part of the Republican force that pushed to enact Senate Bill 14, which imposed stronger penalties on convicted felons who committed child sex trafficking. He also authored Assembly Bill 889, which reinforced preventive measures against addiction problems by mandating that schools warn families of students about the risks of synthetic drugs.
On green initiatives, meanwhile, Patterson echoes the GOP’s framing of climate concerns as having unintended effects on affordability, a premise with which many environmental advocates disagree.
“As the state strives for a greener future, we cannot ignore the potential financial strain on families already wrestling with affordability challenges,” Patterson wrote in an op-ed for The Sacramento Bee in 2024.
“California’s innovative spirit demands solutions that don’t burden its citizens disproportionately. There are dangerous downsides to hasty legislative and regulatory decisions.”
Patterson is running as a Republican.
Who is funding the race?
Patterson led fundraising in 2025 with more than $441,000 in donations, while Parker received more than $55,000 for her campaign, the state’s data shows. Some of Patterson’s notable donations include $2,000 from McDonald’s, $1,500 from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, and $3,000 from the Microsoft Corporation Stakeholders Voluntary Political Action Committee. As of the end of 2025, most of Parker’s individual donors lived in Auburn and Roseville, and the most common donation amount was $100.
This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 1:11 PM with the headline "Your guide to California Assembly’s 5th District primary race."
