Meet Mantosh Kumar, Candidate For CA Congress

Mantosh Kumar is vying to represent California's 15th Congressional District.

County elections officials will begin mailing ballots by May 4, in which voters will decide between candidates running for the congressional district that covers much of San Mateo County, including San Mateo and Redwood City, and the southeastern portion of San Francisco County along the Bay Peninsula.

Subscribe

Learn more about Kumar goals for the region:

• Educational background: Mantosh Kumar holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA. He has called San Mateo County home for more than 25 years.

• Professional background: Mantosh is a seasoned technology, finance, and business leader with over 25 years of experience in the Bay Area. He has held senior roles at three of Silicon Valley's most prominent companies — Oracle, where he worked in product engineering; Cisco, where he drove strategy, finance, and execution; and ServiceNow, where he led strategy, operations, and highly successful new product introductions. Throughout his career, he has managed programs valued in the hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars, with a consistent record of delivering results on time and on budget.

• Age: 53 years

• Why are you seeking a seat in Congress? CA-15 faces a housing crisis, unaffordable healthcare, rising homelessness, and growing inequality — and our incumbent has little to show for it after years in office. His most notable legislative marks include authoring Proposition 19, which stripped inheritance protections from working families and seniors, and an "Empty Lot" bill that critics say serves developer interests. When a representative's campaign is funded by Corporate PACs and special interest groups — including AIPAC ($862,000: Source Track AIPAC) — the question isn't whether he works for them instead of constituents; it's how often. I'm running because CA-15 doesn't need another politician who manages problems and calls out publicly highly undemocratic and corrupting practices earmarks and pork barrels to be a good thing — it needs someone willing to challenge the status quo with bold, transformative ideas. I've spent my career delivering better results at lower cost in some of the world's most demanding organizations. I'm bringing that same drive, creativity, and relentless focus on results to Congress, with no corporate PAC money and no special interest strings.

• What do you think are the top three issues for voters in this election, and how do you plan to address them?

1. The Affordability Crisis — Housing, Energy, Cost of Living, & Healthcare

For families in San Mateo and across California’s 15th Congressional District, “affordability” is not a buzzword. It is a daily struggle where, no matter how hard you work, the math simply does not add up. As a husband, father, and long-time resident, I do not see this as a failure of personal responsibility, but as a failure of public responsibility and political courage. Our community is doing its part; it is time for our leaders to do theirs.

Ahead of the June 2 Congressional Primary, I am calling for a radical shift from profit-first politics to people-first action, focusing on four fronts: energy, housing, groceries, and the crushing costs of healthcare and childcare.

• Housing affordability is the first front where our community is hurting. Young people are locked out of ownership, and seniors feel trapped by rising costs in homes they paid off years ago. Proposition 19 weakened inheritance protections and triggered reassessments that pushed middle-income families out of the communities they built. In response, I am advancing a “Stay Rooted” housing agenda. Locally, this means linking new housing to transit, school, and last-mile planning while prioritizing homes for teachers, nurses, and essential workers. I oppose hollow proposals like the “Empty Lots to Housing Act” that fail to deliver integrated plan with last mile delivery. At the state level, I support “Property Tax Circuit-breakers” to cap property taxes as a share of household income—protecting low and middle-income households and the elderly from being taxed out of their homes—just as Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, and the District of Columbia already do. If they can do it, why can’t California, the richest donor state in the nation? We must also fix Prop 19 to restore parent to child inheritance protection and demand accountability from Insurance Commissioner as home insurance rates jump 30 percent in our communities. Federally, we need to push to expand housing vouchers, renter tax credits, and financing for genuinely affordable, mixed-income, transit-connected housing—not just endless speculative luxury condos.
• Tackling rising cost of energy is our second battleground. In San Mateo County area of CA-15 district, families pay approximately 43 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity—among the highest rates in the nation. Just up the Peninsula, Palo Alto residents pay roughly 20 cents, while Sacramento rates sit near 13 cents. This disparity is not due to physics or geography, but ownership. We are locked into a private, investor-owned monopoly, PG&E, designed to maximize executive profits rather than keep the lights on for working families. Public and municipal systems prove that when energy is treated as a public good, costs plummet. Locally, we must strengthen community-choice energy and show up at CPUC hearings to oppose rate hikes. At the state level, we must tie PG&E executive pay to safety and rate-control benchmarks. When a private utility fails its customers, public ownership must be on the table. Collectively, we must ensure that the massive power demands of AI data centers are funded by the corporations building them, not dumped onto residential ratepayers.
• The third front is the rising cost of groceries and everyday essentials. Clothing, coffee, fruit, meat, tools, detergents, paper goods—across the board, families see their carts getting smaller while their bills grow larger. Trump tariffs on imported goods have acted as a hidden sales tax, stripping thousands of dollars in purchasing power from average households. Trade and tax policy should protect American workers without punishing consumers. Locally, we should support small and regional producers when we can and push city and county leaders to promote real competition in grocery and retail so no single chain can quietly dictate prices. At the state level, I favor targeted relief for low- and middle-income families, and tough enforcement against price gouging on essentials. Federally, I will fight for stronger antitrust enforcement and smarter trade rules to ensure a handful of corporations cannot quietly coordinate higher prices on basic necessities.
• Finally, healthcare and childcare have become the two bills parents fear most. In CA-15, families are drowning in premiums and deductibles, while childcare rivals college tuition. This system is rigged against working families. Locally, we can convert school sites, community centers, and faith-based spaces into licensed childcare hubs. At the state level, we must expand childcare subsidies and cap surprise medical bills. Federally, I will fight for a comprehensive single-payer universal healthcare system—covering medical, dental, vision, and mental health—to end medical bankruptcies and eliminate out-of-pocket costs.

This crisis is a policy choice, not a law of nature. When neighbors stand together—from City Hall to Washington—we can end the affordability crisis and build a district where people who work here can afford to live and retire with dignity.

2. AI related job losses - Impose hard guardrails on businesses to protect workers

We are witnessing the quiet onset of an economic displacement crisis that threatens to stratify American society into two permanent classes: those who harness AI, and those displaced by it. What was once the realm of science fiction — machines replacing human labor at scale — is now a measurable, accelerating reality. Between 13% and 16% of entry-level workers aged 22 to 25 have already lost jobs to automated systems. These are not statistics. These are our children, our neighbors, our future. Furthermore, massive data centers are consuming billions of gallons of water and enormous quantities of energy annually, competing directly with communities for resources that sustain human life. And the leaders charged with addressing all of this? Most cannot define the technology they're being asked to regulate.

With decades solving complex challenges, driving large-scale excellence, I will work alongside Senator Bernie Sanders and other like-minded politicians to put hard guard rails on businesses so they can’t fire workers in the name of AI productivity. We need to define specific areas and parameters where AI will be allowed to work, impose AI displacement tax, transparency and accountability mandates, and environmental hard caps on AI Infrastructure (massive data centers) while creating the AI-Proof safety net. To learn more, please visit https://mantosh.us/issues/

3. USA’s role in supporting genocide and illegal foreign wars

First of all, about Gaza, moral clarity is required: What is happening in Gaza is a genocide. I will say it. Over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed — the majority women, children, and elderly civilians — since October 2023. Hospitals, schools, and refugee camps are deliberately targeted. Humanitarian aid systematically blocked as a weapon of war. Even the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued provisional measures citing plausible genocide risk under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The Holocaust was a crime against humanity — and no past suffering grants any government a license to inflict mass atrocities on another people. Victimhood is not a credential for perpetrating genocide. I distinguish sharply between the Jewish people — whose safety and dignity I defend — and the Israeli government’s military and political conduct, which I condemn.

The Fiscal Trade-Off: $17B+ for foreign military aid. Cuts to your healthcare. That math is wrong. The U.S. has provided over $17 billion in emergency military aid to Israel since October 2023 — more than the entire HUD annual budget. The same Congress approving that spending is cutting Medicaid, child tax credits, SNAP, and housing vouchers. Every dollar funding a foreign war is a dollar not spent on housing affordability, Medicare for All, AI worker protections, or keeping San Mateo seniors in their homes. Our current representative Kevin Mullin takes lots of AIPAC money, $862,000 to be precise (Source: Track AIPAC). I do not. That independence is not incidental — it is why I can say what he won’t.

• Why are you a better choice than your opponents

I am the only candidate in this race who combines deep, hands-on expertise in technology, business operations, and policy — without owing anything to corporate PACs or special interest groups. I have spent 25+ years in Silicon Valley solving large-scale, complex problems at Oracle, Cisco, and ServiceNow, managing programs worth hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars. I know what it takes to move from a bold idea to an actual deliverable. My opponent, Kevin Mullin, authored Proposition 19 - a bad bill into law when he was in California legislature - with more than $40M backing from the California Association of Realtors and takes money from many corporate PACs and Special Interest Groups, including AIPAC. I take neither. That independence isn't incidental to my candidacy — it is the foundation of it. I will say what he won't and do what he hasn't.

You can review my detailed and concrete 11 points program at https://mantosh.us/issues/ to end the crises of affordability, democracy, and rising authoritarianism & tech-oligarchy while simultaneously fighting to protect workers from AI related job losses, combat the climate challenges based on science, restore women’s right to choose, create broad based prosperity through my One Percent Bill, and many more.

• What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

First of all, the biggest accomplishment I have when compared to the majority of current office bearers in the Congress is that I have an unblemished record of delivering results with utmost honesty, integrity, and moral clarity, something sorely lacking in my opponent and many other fellow democratic leaders who take money practically from any corporate PAC or Special Interests and happy to justify corrupting and undemocratic earmarks or pork barrels as a good thing in a public setting. By contrast, throughout my career at Oracle, Cisco, and ServiceNow, I have repeatedly identified problems others avoided, built cross-functional teams around them, and shipped real solutions — on time and on budget. I have led highly profitable new product introductions and managed programs valued from hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars. In the private sector, performance matters: you deliver, you're rewarded; you don't, there are consequences. That accountability is exactly what is missing in Congress today, and it is the standard I intend to hold myself to. The same engineering discipline and execution focus that built world-class products will drive my work for CA-15 district’s families in Washington.

• Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

My wife works for a publicly funded University of California.

• Have you ever held a public office, whether appointive or elective?

No. I am running for the first time.

• Is there anything else you would like voters to know?

I am running a clean campaign — no corporate PAC money, no donations from special interest groups. I am funded entirely by myself and individual donors, which means I answer only to you.

CA-15 is the heart of American innovation. We don't just dream about the future — we code it, design it, and ship it to the world. It is long past time our representation in Washington reflected that same spirit. I am not here to play a performative political game. I am here to get things done — on housing, healthcare, AI, climate, fair immigration, and ending the blank checks that fund genocide and foreign wars while our own families go without.

Check out his campaign website at www.mantosh.us.