Mark DeSaulnier
Mark DeSaulnier, a Democrat who has represented California in the U.S. House since 2015, faces Republican business owner Jeff Frese in the 2026 race for California's 10th congressional district.
2026 Races & Market Forecast
Live TruthIndex™ and prediction market consensus for races contested by Mark DeSaulnier.
- Born
- March 31, 1952
- Birthplace
- Lowell, Massachusetts
- Education
- Cranwell Preparatory School
College of the Holy Cross (Bachelor of Arts in history, 1974)
Biography & Campaign Analysis
Background
Mark DeSaulnier was born on March 31, 1952, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the second-youngest of five children in a Catholic family of French-Canadian and Irish ancestry.
His father, Edward Joseph DeSaulnier Jr., served as a judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, and his mother, Virginia Ann DeSaulnier, was a retailer.
After attending Cranwell Preparatory School, he graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts in history, working as a probation officer, truck driver and hotel employee while an undergraduate.
He later settled in Concord, California, and owned and operated several restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Career
DeSaulnier was appointed to the Concord Planning Commission in 1988, elected to the Concord City Council in 1991 and served as mayor of Concord in 1993.
In 1994 Governor Pete Wilson appointed him, then a Republican, to the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, where he served until 2006; he has been a Democrat since 2000.
He represented the 11th State Assembly district from 2006 to 2008 and the 7th State Senate district from 2008 to 2015, chairing the Assembly Committee on Transportation and the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations committee.
In 2014, after George Miller announced his retirement, DeSaulnier won election in California's 11th congressional district and took office on January 3, 2015. The district was renumbered the 10th in 2023 and includes most of Contra Costa County. In the 119th Congress he is ranking member of the Committee on Ethics and of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, and he also sits on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
2026 race
In California's 10th congressional district, Mark DeSaulnier is the Democratic incumbent, having been re-elected with 66.5% of the vote in 2024. In the top-two primary he finished first with 59.68%, and Republican Jeff Frese, a business owner, placed second with 12.94%.
The eliminated candidates included Republican chiropractor Angela Griffiths and Democrats Joshua Hamilton, a community organizer, Mitchell Maisler, a brewer, and Bob Rowland, a commercial land broker. DeSaulnier faces Frese in the general election on November 3, 2026.