The Farm on the Ballot: Stanford Alumni Facing Voters on November 3

Ten days before the Nov. 3 general election, Stanford degrees turn up on ballots from Sacramento to Trenton to Boston. The list includes a former cabinet secretary running for governor of California, a sitting U.S. senator, two veteran members of California’s House delegation, and three Republicans, a German professor, an Air Force officer and a former small-town board chair, each trying to take a seat now held by the other party or left open.

This is not a complete census. It covers the alumni whose Stanford degrees could be confirmed from an official biography, a university record or the candidate’s own campaign, and it describes each race from the public record. The Chronicle endorses no one.

At the Top of the California Ticket

The most prominent alumnus on any ballot this fall is Xavier Becerra, whom The Stanford Daily identifies as a graduate of the class of 1980 who returned for a law degree in 1984 (A.B. ’80, J.D. ’84). His public résumé is long: twelve terms in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2017, four years as California’s attorney general and four as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, from 2021 to 2025, as Ballotpedia records.

Becerra finished first in the June 2 top-two primary with 28.0 percent, ahead of Republican Steve Hilton at 24.6 percent, according to Ballotpedia‘s tally. Third place, at 22.8 percent, went to another alumnus, Tom Steyer (MBA ’83), whose campaign spent what the Daily described as a state-record $216 million. The Farm’s own voters went their own way: in the Stanford precinct, the Daily reported, Steyer took 51.7 percent to Becerra’s 24.9.

Hilton is not a Stanford graduate; his degree is from Oxford. He does know the campus. The Daily notes that he has been a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and taught at the d.school. The most recent public survey, by Emerson College Polling (Oct. 17–19, 2026; 1,000 likely voters; margin of error ±3.1 points), found Becerra at 60 percent and Hilton at 33. A poll is a snapshot taken on particular days, not a result, and the result is still ten days off.

A Senator on the Ballot in New Jersey

Cory Booker’s Senate biography says he earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Stanford, where he played varsity football, worked as a peer counselor and wrote for the student newspaper; the Daily styles him ’91, M.A. ’92. He is seeking re-election against Republican Justin Murphy, a Navy veteran, attorney and former deputy mayor of Tabernacle Township, with two minor-party candidates, Veronica Fernandez and Joanne Kuniansky, also on the ballot, as NorthJersey.com reported on Oct. 23.

The same report cites the only public poll of the race, by StimSight Research for Insider NJ on Sept. 12: Booker 49 percent, Murphy 43, among 498 likely voters. That margin is closer than the major forecasters’ ratings, which, the paper notes, still list the seat as safely Democratic.

Two Veterans of the House Delegation

Zoe Lofgren’s official biography lists a B.A. in political science from Stanford in 1970, earned on a California State Scholarship. Before she enrolled, it says, she worked the night shift at the Eastman Kodak plant in Palo Alto to cover costs the scholarship did not. She has served in the House since 1995 and is now the ranking member of the Science, Space and Technology Committee. The biography credits her with negotiating the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which passed the House in the 116th and 117th Congresses, and says she has “consistently sought to cut through the divisive political rhetoric to advance commonsense immigration policy solutions.” Her opponent in the 18th District is Republican Shane Lewis, according to the Secretary of State’s certified list of candidates.

Josh Harder holds a B.A. from Stanford (2008), according to the House’s biographical directory. The Daily marked his arrival in Congress in 2019 as a Central Valley representative. In the 9th District he faces Republican John McBride, also listed on the state’s certified roster.

Three Republicans, Three Different Roads

David Pan received his B.A. from Stanford in 1986 in English and German and a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1995, according to his UC Irvine faculty profile. He has taught German at Irvine since 2006. His campaign biography adds a stint as an associate at McKinsey and service on the State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights in 2019 and 2020. He is challenging Democratic Rep. Lou Correa in California’s 46th District.

Jace Yarbrough came to Stanford for law school. His campaign site says he earned his J.D. there and served as president of the school’s Federalist Society chapter, after bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and government from the University of Texas at Austin, and that he is a major with fifteen years in the U.S. Air Force. He became the Republican nominee in the redrawn 32nd District of Texas after Ryan Binkley left the runoff, the Texas Tribune reported on March 17. His Democratic opponent for the open seat is Dan Barrios. Ballotpedia lists the Cook Political Report’s rating as Solid Republican.

Elizabeth Dionne’s campaign lists a J.D. with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she served on the Stanford Law Review, along with a Wellesley B.A., a Cambridge M.Phil. earned as a Marshall Scholar and a Boston College M.A. A former chair of the Belmont Select Board, she launched her challenge to Massachusetts Treasurer Deb Goldberg, a Democrat, on Dec. 9, 2025, as WBUR reported. Goldberg answered then that she looked “forward to a robust conversation about the work of the Treasurer’s office and our meaningful accomplishments during my tenure.”

The Long View

Stanford has always been close to the ballot box. Leland Stanford was governor of California and a United States senator, and Herbert Hoover, a member of the university’s first graduating class, became president. A century later the alumni on the ballot are a more varied group. They include a former cabinet secretary, a senator who played football on the Farm, a Germanist from Irvine, an Air Force lawyer from Texas and a Wellesley-trained municipal official in Massachusetts. They disagree about nearly everything a ballot can ask.

What they share is the Farm, and a willingness to put their records before voters who owe them nothing. Some of these races are expected to be close and others are not, and either way the forecasts and polls cited here describe the campaign, not its outcome. The Chronicle will report the results as they are certified. If we have missed a Stanford alumnus on a November ballot, we would like to hear from you at editor@stanfordchronicle.com.

Featured photo: the California State Capitol, Sacramento. Photo: Steven Pavlov / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0