Political newcomer, Navy vet challenges Carabajal for SLO County Congress seat

A newcomer to politics has entered the 2026 election race to challenge Salud Carbajal for his seat in Congress.

Bob Smith, a retired Navy commander, launched his campaign to be California’s 24th District congressman, representing San Luis Obispo County from Cayucos to the southern county line, as well as all of Santa Barbara County and parts of Ventura County.

The Navy vet described himself as a “moderate Republican,” noting that it was a top priority to represent every member of his district.

“I think there’s a lot of people here on the Central Coast that feel that they have not been represented adequately,” Smith told The Tribune. “It’s been many decades now of single party majority rule, and that falls into where only one party matters, only one thought matters.”

He also took a jab at Carbajal.

“I think our congressman is one of the most invisible congressmen that I’ve ever seen in Congress,” he said. “I just think he does nothing.”

Smith is currently the only candidate up against Carbajal for the congressional seat he has held since 2017. Smith’s 26 years of active duty as a Navy commander have familiarized him with federal government operations and qualify him to challenge the incumbent candidate, he told The Tribune.

“Although this is my first time into politics, I would consider myself a professional in the process of Washington D.C. and one of the biggest budget lines there, which is the defense side,” he said.

He promised to “use my big stick when I need to” to bring federal funding and resources to local governments.

The mid-term primaries will take place on June 2, 2026. Every California county including SLO County will hold a special election on Nov. 4 of this year to vote on new congressional district maps, but the boundaries for the 24th District would not meaningfully change.

Congressional candidate promotes a strong middle class, immigration reform and nuclear energy

Rebuliding a strong middle class is central to Smith’s campaign platform.

“We have to completely pivot toward the middle class,” he told The Tribune. “Everyone here understands that and knows that the middle class is evaporating here from the Central Coast, and we’re turning into a lot of haves and have-nots, and that’s not good.”

Smith attributed the loss of the middle class to be the root of many other problems, including homelessness, poverty and the costs of living and energy.

“We’re killing people here with how burdensome it is to live here on the Central Coast, and we’ve really got to do something about that,” he said.

Part of the problem is loss of industry, he said. Since 2018, 500 major companies have left California, bringing jobs with them, he said.

His approach to rebuild a healthy middle class focuses on establishing more affordable housing, job creation to keep college graduates on the Central Coast and pivoting federal government resources toward creating economic opportunities for the middle class.

As far as energy goes, Smith was in favor of “a common sense base load that mixes with renewables,” which promotes nuclear energy over offshore wind farms, he said.

“Something that I will be focused on from the federal government is making sure that California’s energy grid is not going down this crazy activist solutions, like putting wind farms in Morro Bay,” Smith said. “That makes no sense when it gets a third of what Diablo Canyon does as a nuclear power plant. We need to do common sense things.”

The candidate described himself as a “pragmatic, very problem-solving, not an ideologue kind of person,” attributing those characteristics to his military and engineering background.

Originally from Philadelphia, Smith joined the Navy at 18, which put him through college at Old Dominion University in Virginia and a master’s degree in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. He later went on to become a commander and won the Navy’s Engineer of the Year award in 2023. After retiring from the Navy last year, he now works as a senior systems engineer for a defense contractor.

His motivation to run for Congress over local office also stems from his history of national service and experience at the federal level.

“I don’t think I was done serving the country yet,” he said. “We have a lot of things that are just failing here.”

So far, the Republican Party of Santa Barbara County has endorsed Smith, and he is currently trying to secure SLO County’s Republican Party endorsement.

The red-leaning moderate took a middle-of-the-line stance toward immigration, saying that previously deported criminals have no place in the country, but the same logic should not apply to hard-working undocumented moms, children and DACA recipients who have lived in the United States their whole lives and grew up in American school systems.

“How is it ethical at all to send those people anywhere?” he said. “Why would we not be fast tracking them to a citizenship?”

He also criticized the Democrats’ approach to demanding immigration reform and called for more bipartisan collaboration.

“I feel like the Democrat side here in California is just not working toward solutions,” Smith said. “It’s just constant tantrums about the administration and the president. ... Unfortunately, our partisan rhetoric just has people on both sides arguing with each other over their extreme stance on either one of them, instead of just having a common sense approach.”

To Smith, being a congressman is about taking all constituents’ inputs into account and working toward a comprehensive solution that everybody can live with, he said.

“This is what makes America strong,” Smith said. “That we have diversity of thought.”

Chloe Shrager

The Tribune

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Chloe Shrager is the courts and crimes reporter for The Tribune. She grew up in Palo Alto, California, and graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in Political Science. When not writing, she enjoys surfing, backpacking, skiing and hanging out with her cat, Billy Goat.