Michael Greer’s confident that Del Norte will vote for him — they have in the past and things haven’t changed, he says.

The Republican candidate for California’s Assembly District 2 is not only the current Trustee Area 5 representative on the Del Norte Unified School District Board of Trustees, he ran against incumbent Chris Rogers two years ago. Though he lost the district in November 2024, Greer received more votes in Del Norte County than his opponent. Greer said that Del Norte County voters know when he says he’ll do something, he’ll deliver.

“I’m a doer,” he said. “If I have something going through legislation, I’m going to push it and I’m going to do it until I get it done. It’s that simple.”

Greer joined Congressional District 2 candidates Paul Saulsbury and Tim Geist for a conversation with Redwood Voice Community News youth producers Monique Camarena and Aisling Bludworth on April 23. 

The conversation gave the producers a chance to interview folks running for public office. Earlier in the evening, they sat down with Del Norte County District 3 supervisor candidates Lupe Gutierrez and Chris Howard. 

Redwood Voice sent invitations to incumbent assemblyman Chris Rogers, a Democrat. Invitations were also sent to U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, also a Democrat, and his challengers Democrat Rose Penelope Yee, Republicans Robin Littau and Angelita Valles as well as No Party Preference candidates Gregory Burgess and Nicolette Hahn Niman.

Burgess sat down with KFUG Community Radio earlier in April, however Huffman, Yee, Littau, Valles and Niman did not respond. 

Greer and Rogers will be on the June 2 primary ballot and the Nov. 3 general election ballot since they’re the only two candidates running for Assembly District 2.

Meanwhile, Geist and Saulsbury are both from Redding. Geist pointed out that due to Proposition 50, he and Saulsbury have only been living in Congressional District 2 for only a few months.

Approved by California voters during a special election last year, Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, established new legislatively drawn congressional district maps that will be in effect through 2030. As a result, Congressional District 2 consists of Del Norte, Humboldt, Siskiyou, Shasta, Modoc, Trinity, Marin and parts of Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

Both Geist and Saulsbury view the new district map as an opportunity to work together regardless of political party. Though the focus of his campaign is on the proliferation of artificial intelligence, Geist said he hoped to urge voters to set aside their biases and focus on issues that impact everyone — fire danger is one and the need for water is another.

Saulsbury, however, said that it’s important to adapt and be “very flexible very quickly.” He said he’s running on three core issues — community safety, healthcare access and cost of living. He said he wanted to focus on the things that will allow Del Norte County voters to remain in their community.

“What I’m seeing is people are being forced to relocate from the town they grew up in, the town they live in because they can’t afford to live here where there are no sustainable jobs,” Saulsbury said, drawing a parallel between Del Norte and Modoc County. “I was in Alturas last night talking with local voters. A lot of the young voters are leaving the town, leaving the county, going off to college, going off to get a job and often not coming back.”

Saulsbury has lived in Shasta County for 18 years, but lived for the first 22 years of his life in Alaska. Before he was a mental health professional, he was a flight attendant and, before that, an emergency medical technician. Saulsbury said he was the lead EMT at Denali National Park.

One of the reasons Saulsbury decided to seek a Congressional seat is he feels there needs to be an emphasis on the trades, such as plumbing and electrical work. 

Geist has lived in the Redding area for about four years, purchasing property, raising 120 fig trees and “living the dream.” 

The 2026 Congressional election isn’t Geist’s first foray into politics. In 2022, he ran against the late Republican congressman Doug LaMalfa, who represented District 1 until his death earlier this year, as well as Democrat Max Steiner and Yee, who was running as an independent in that election.

Geist said the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capital Building in Washington D.C. both upset him and inspired him to run for public office as a Republican.

“I had been working on an idea, a legislative idea, about giving an emotional advantage to truth tellers,” he told Redwood Voice, adding that he was inspired to seek public office in 2022 as a result of the riot at the Capital. “This time it’s more serious because lying and brainwashing is becoming more efficient with artificial intelligence.”

Geist is advocating for a universal basic income, saying that with artificial intelligence “doubling capacity every eight to 10 weeks,” it will continue to get smarter. The proliferation of AI will create social displacement, a mass migration of people from cities to small towns, and potentially violence and unrest.

“Congress needs to prepare with a universal basic income — we need to force this issue,” he said. “(People) should be able to make plans for their family. They need somebody to tell them the truth, to tell them things they don’t want to hear, and I’m the guy that will do that.”

Greer came to Crescent City from Paradise shortly after the Camp Fire about six years ago. A member of the school board in that Butte County community, Greer said he helped the district rebuild before moving to Del Norte. 

After running against Rogers in the 2024 election, Greer says he’s very familiar with what is happening in Sacramento, especially as it concerns education. He’s been Del Norte County Unified School District’s Trustee Area 5 representative for about four years. In addition to representing Klamath, Greer also represents the Bertsch-Oceanview and Parkway Drive areas.

Greer is a retired special education teacher and is also a County Office of Education delegate for Mendocino, Humboldt, Lake and Del Norte counties on the California School Boards Association. 

Greer said he is also a founding member on a new organization that focuses on county offices of education.

In the two years since he last ran for Assembly, Greer says things haven’t changed.

“My big thing is accountability and that’s (why) I’m running, because I want to see people held accountable for whatever they’re doing,” he said. “I don’t care if they’re Republican, I don’t care if they’re Democrat, I don’t care if they’re independent — people need to be held accountable and it’s not happening in Sacramento.”

During the conversation, Bludworth also asked each candidate where they stand on transgender issues..

Saulsbury, a mental health clinician, said that his being a Republican is “very challenging because of my political views and my stance. But, he said he sees first-hand how policies and systems have both failed and supported the transgender community.

“Human life should never become politicized, it should be dignified,” he said. “We have to figure out how to live together and coexist in a way where it’s effective. It’s very difficult right now with a lot of policies that are going back and forth (about) whether or not certain benefits should be allowed or benefits should not be allowed for the transgender community.”

Geist compared his background as a researcher to Saulsbury’s career as a mental health clinician and said that sexuality is a learned behavior. Noting that children often change their minds as they get older, Geist said he’s heard of people being sad because they chose to seek “transgender surgery.”

Geist said one of his friends many years ago “went that way” and he’s grateful for that education 

“In the end we need to teach each other with respect and loving and understanding even when it makes some people uncomfortable,” he said. 

Greer isn’t uncomfortable discussing transgender issues — he has transgender grandchildren — but he says he believes in two genders. He argues that “boys should not be in girls’ sports” that transgender girls participating with other girls are causing those athletes to lose scholarships.

“Just recently in California, one young man in the triple jump — it was a 20-foot difference between hime and what the boys did, but because he was transgender and ran against the girls and he won the championship,” Greer said. “That’s not right.”

Greer was referring to AB Hernandez, a trans girl from Riverside County who took home gold medals in two events at a state track and field competition in June 2025.

Though trans students have been allowed to participate in sex-segregated school programs since 2013, the California Interscholastic Federation made a last-minute rule change to allow an extra competitor to take part in the three events Hernandez was participating in, the Associated Press reported in May 2025. 

Greer argues that the root of the challenges many transgender individuals face is due to children being exposed to it at school. He said he doesn’t agree with the far right way some of his fellow Republicans would handle the issue, but he doesn’t think gender identity should be a protected class.

“I believe very firmly that the things that are happening in schools, teaching transgender, different genders and all that type of stuff, is causing more mental health issues in our children… than ever happened before,” Greer said. “I did not lose the love of my grandchildren when they became transgender. I supported them in their decision… Their goal is to be happy, but in schools, it’s important that the parents are part of that process.”

Ballots were sent to Del Norte County voters on Monday. For more information about the June 2 primary, click here or visit the Del Norte County Elections Office.