Michael Masuda

Masuda was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, according to Ballotpedia, and says he grew up in a small town of about 200 people in Amador County in a middle-class household, the son of two Air Force veterans.[1] He graduated from Amador High School and earned a graduate degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in 2013.[1] He worked as an engineer designing tools for the U.S. military and later at the U.S. Department of State, where he says he applied his science and engineering background to foreign policy and national security. Ballotpedia lists his career as engineer and Foreign Affairs Officer and notes an affiliation with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[1]

Masuda describes himself as the grandson of Japanese Americans from the Bay Area who were forcibly relocated and interned during World War II, and of German and Polish American farmers in northern Wisconsin.[1] He says he was president of a neighborhood nonprofit that maintains a local dog park in the Washington, DC, neighborhood where he and his wife lived, and that they have been married 10 years and have two toddlers.[1] He describes this as his first run for office and says he was "called back to my home district"; he advanced from the June 2, 2026 top-two primary to the general election against McClintock.[1] He received 43.6% of the vote to Tom McClintock's 56.4%, according to unofficial results reported by NBC News.[2]