About Elijah

Greetings! My name is Elijah Mack, and I'm running to represent District #2 as the youngest member of Santa Barbara County's Board of Supervisors!

I am NOT a career politician, I am NOT a local big-shot in the pocket of private interests, I am your average local citizen, volunteerist, and activist seeking to represent the everyday interests and concerns of his neighbors, and keep the County Govt. accountable when it deviates from these.

You may remember me from my grassroots, home-grown campaign to become California's youngest-ever State Senator, representing District #21 in 2024. While I knew my chances of winning as a new, young candidate, were very slim, and I was running on only a few thousand dollars in donations compared to the incumbent's hundreds of thousands, I used my campaign as a chance to try and help heal the political divide in our area, focus on a positive and unifying political vision, and encourage people to vote based on the policies and personality of candidates rather than party lines.

After outperforming the previous candidate to run against our incumbent State Senator, and receiving a notable groundswell of support and appreciative messages from voters, I had so many kind folks encouraging me to run for a smaller local or county office, believing that this time around, I could not only share a positive message, but perhaps also win my race- long story short, after much deliberation, I decided to throw my hat in the ring to represent Santa Barbara County Supervisorial District #2.

Now you may be wondering why, in my first race, I subjected myself to running a grassroots political campaign for an office representing an area larger in population and geographical size than a Congressional District, while, at the time, working and taking university classes full-time and managing everything else your average young adult has to manage in their day to day lives.

Well, the answer is that I was, and am today, driven by a vision for a free, healthy, and affordable California, with strong, interdependent communities, thriving local economies, room for the personal liberty of people of all lifestyles and worldviews, and access to abundant wild nature. I trudged through the mud of an almost completely self-run race for over a year and a half, and it certainly was rough at times, but I'm utterly blessed to have received the opportunities and abilities that have brought me this far, and I'm thankful just to look over the campaign I built, the young people I encouraged, and the values I was able to fight for.

A little bit about me personally:

My family has deep roots in Southern California. The first of my ancestors to come to Southern California were descendants of pioneers moving westward generationally throughout the 1800s, finally hanging their hats by the golden coast in the 1920s.While I technically hail from Seattle, WA (where my parents temporary lived while my father served the area as a Free Methodist pastor), I have lived in Santa Barbara since the age of seven, and both of my parents are Santa Barbarans working, these days, in education and community service.

Through my life, I have enjoyed volunteering up and down the West Coast of the United States at homeless shelters, food banks, and tent cities, racking up thousands of service hours with my family's church. I belong to, and am an advocate for, traditional Mutual Aid Societies and Samaritan Organizations. I also volunteer my time supporting my church in their youth ministry outreach, and in the past, I have worked with various political candidates and organizations I support, across party lines, to aid in developing campaign messaging and strategies.