Jennifer Hawks, a Republican, is running for California State Treasurer in the November 2026 general election against Democrat Eleni Kounalakis. A retired administrator who spent about 20 years managing finances as an office manager and executive assistant at Sacred Heart Schools in Atherton before retiring in 2021, Hawks has never held elected office and has no professional finance license or credential, a point noted by neutral reporters covering the race. She leads the Palo Alto Republican Women Federated and is active with the California Federation of Republican Women.
Hawks has campaigned as a fiscal-watchdog outsider, pointing to California’s roughly $349 billion budget, about $78 billion in outstanding treasury debt, and roughly $8.2 billion in annual debt-service payments as areas she says need more careful oversight and public transparency. She has proposed forensic audits of treasury divisions and keeping the state’s pooled-money investment accounts conservative rather than speculative. She has been endorsed by the California Republican Party.
