Huntington Beach community activist Dom Jones enters District 47 race

The race for California’s 47th Congressional District gained another entrant Thursday.

Huntington Beach business owner and community activist Dominique “Dom” Jones has entered the fray.

Jones joins challengers state Sen. Dave Min and former U.S. Rep. Harley Rouda, both Democrats like herself. Former state Assemblyman Scott Baugh, a Republican, also has announced he is seeking the seat in 2024.

District 47 includes Irvine, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. It is currently represented by Katie Porter (D-Irvine), who has announced a bid for the U.S. Senate seat long occupied by Dianne Feinstein, now 89.

Jones, 36, owns a cycling studio in Huntington Beach. She got into politics in recent years and interviewed for the City Council opening left vacant when Tito Ortiz resigned in 2021. Rhonda Bolton was eventually appointed to the position.

Huntington Beach resident Dom Jones owns a fitness studio in town.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Jones is currently the second vice president of the Democratic Club of West Orange County and the government relations ambassador of the United Nations Assn.’s Orange County chapter. Jones said Democratic Party of Orange County chair Ada Briceño has been a mentor of sorts to her.

“She helped me realize that stepping in as a community leader, I shouldn’t be afraid to do so,” Jones said. “She said I had already created something and helped me realize I could do so much more. No one had ever told me that. She’s the perfect example of a woman who has lifted up another woman.”

Jones said she doesn’t see her relative lack of political experience as a bad thing. To her, it’s part of a journey that started when she was born to a 13-year-old mother in Compton. She spent much of her youth in the foster care system and didn’t always have housing, she said.

After moving around and attending six different high schools, she accepted a full-ride scholarship to Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota before returning to California, attending Cal State Dominguez Hills and starting missionary work.

“I care about instituting communities where people feel safe and loved and cared for and honored,” she said. “Something I didn’t always feel, I want people to feel. I feel that our county here in District 47, we have a wonderful coastline and are such a beautiful community of people. Unfortunately, in our country and even in our county, we’ve been struggling with honoring and respecting everyone.

“The coastline does have amazing people, but we all need to be educated and learn how to unite and understand each other, learn about what we don’t understand so we do not fear.”

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