Welcome to episode 171 with Democratic candidate for the 38th district in the California Assembly, Jonathan Ahmadi,

Jonathan Ahmadi is a first generation Californian who has done many things in life. He has worked as an aeronautical engineer, he has been involved in the entertainment industry, and was part of former Congresswoman Katie Hill's team here in Santa Clarita. He currently is involved with healthcare where he works with providers bringing new facilities online safely. He is extremely involved with the community by volunteering at the SCV Senior Center, being a member of the Sierra Club, the Whittaker Bermite Citizen's Advisory Group as well as a being a campaign lead for the BE SMART campaign for Moms Demand Action. He has also been involved with the Santa Clarita Homelessness task force and is Vice President of the Santa Clarita Veteran Services Collaborative.

He is running as a Democrat for the California assembly in the 38th District hoping to unseat Republican incumbent Suzette Valladarez. This is going to be an interesting race. The last democrat to hold the 39th assembly seat was Christy Smith. She seemed like a shoo in to continue in that seat until the 25th District needed a Democrat to run for the suddenly open seat in Congress. When this happened suddenly the Democrats no longer had a candidate to run for the 38th. Three people eventually stepped up but ultimately it divided the Democratic votes and as a result of the jungle primary, two Republicans moved forward to the general election eventually leading to Suzette Valladarez winning the seat.

To say Valladarez caught a break and moved to an easy win is arguably an understatement. But in 2022 things will be different. As of right now she has no Republican challengers which means there will probably be a Democrat challenger to her in the general election. There is currently three Democrats including Jonathan vying for that spot in the general election and they are all extremely strong candidates. In my very humble opinion this is the race to watch over the next year.

I met with Jonathan a few weeks ago. We talked about a lot of different things including his time working with Katie Hill, his involvement with the community and why he is running. But what really impresses me about Jonathan is his kind and friendly nature. He showed up early for the podcast just to see if he could help out with setup. (which he did). And upon a classic outtake moment where I first sat down in my chair and I fell backward, instead of laughing about it, he was legitimately concerned I may have hurt myself.

This of course proves he's a much better person than me.

I said we talked about a lot of different things but before we got to the nitty gritty I thought it would be fun to open with a question which has been bugging me since the first time I met Jonathan. Needless to say that first question threw him for a bit of a loop which is always fun.