San Luis Obispo County’s 2nd District voters will elect a brand-new supervisor to represent them for the first time in 20 years come June 2.
Thanks to long-serving 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson stepping down, constituents will choose between Morro Bay civil engineer and former Fresno City Councilmember Michael Erin Woody, and Gibson’s freshly picked chief of staff, former SLO Chamber of Commerce CEO Jim Dantona.
Some voters in District 2—scattered across the Monterey County line, San Simeon, Cambria, Cayucos, Los Osos, Morro Bay, Harmony, and parts of SLO—have noted similarities between the two. What makes them different?
“I don’t have any professional consultants telling me what to do or what to say or anything. I literally sat down and said, ‘I have a vision for this,’” Woody said.
But Woody’s past as a Republican candidate has reared its head in mailers paid for and distributed by Dantona’s campaign.
Raised conservative, he said his vote for President Donald Trump in 2016 was borne out of frustrations with Obamacare. He left the Republican Party a few years later and said he doesn’t currently align with any political party. He told New Times he didn’t vote for a president during the 2020 and 2024 general elections.
“It was after a couple years of watching the local Republican Party, the national Republican Party, and the embarrassment of all this, that I said, ‘This is not the Republican Party anymore. I don’t want to be associated with this. This isn’t who I am as a person,” Woody said.
It’s been hard to dodge the association. Skeptical residents of the liberal North Coast district took to social media wondering if he still maintains conservative ties.
“I’m not saying Michael Erin Woody IS a Republican,” one Nextdoor post read. “I’m saying that I don’t trust that he’s NOT a Republican.”
Dantona’s campaign mailer labels Woody as conservative, claiming that Woody “doesn’t share our Central Coast values.”
“The way he has staked out his position on issues is why I think people say he’s a cloaked Republican,” Dantona told New Times.“He may have changed parties but the way he feels about ICE, the way he feels about climate change, oil drilling, fossil fuels, potentially, those are pretty core values that are on the conservative side.”
But Dantona has received flak about the mailers from voters like Cambria resident Susan Kwasny.
‘It was after a couple years of watching the local Republican Party, the national Republican Party, and the embarrassment of all this, that I said, “This is not the Republican Party anymore. I don’t want to be associated with this. This isn’t who I am as a person.”’
—Michael Erin Woody, SLO County 2nd District supervisorial candidate
“A petty campaign flyer changed my mind,” she wrote in a May 14 letter to New Times. “I like to hear what a candidate will be doing for the county of San Luis Obispo and my district. I heard that from Michael Woody.”
Campaign finance filings show Dantona’s paid thousands of dollars to Cunningham Mirman Public Affairs—the political strategy firm run by former Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham and his former legislative assistant Nick Mirman—SLO County Democratic Party Chair Tom Fulks, Fulks’ daughter and AI safety expert Clara Fulks, and consulting firms C&I Consulting and ISPolitical.
“I would look at something like Abraham Lincoln’s Team of Rivals, where he got opinions from all sides of the issue,” Dantona said. “People are very different, … but I like getting opinions from lots of people because I don’t pretend to be all-knowing.”
His donors include San Luis Ambulance, the SLO County Democratic Central Committee, Central Coast Construction Trades, SLO City Councilmember Jan Marx, former 2nd District Parks and Recreation Director Pandora Nash-Karner, and Generation Build founder Michael Massey who’s vying for a Paso Robles City Council seat. Dantona raised a little more than $103,000 from July 2025 to April 18, 2026.
Woody has turned away donations from unions, corporations, and political action committees. Most of his donor base comprise retirees. He’s raised $7,660 from January 2025 to April 18, 2026.
Recently, the two candidates faced off in a Cayucos forum where they discussed their potential working relationship with SLO County District Attorney Dan Dow, whose partisan social media posts have made him a contentious figure.
Dantona admitted that his response wasn’t as “politically correct” as it should have been. At the forum, he said his working relationship with Dow “wouldn’t be a great one because Dan, in his partisanship, wouldn’t be open to working with a Democrat.”
He clarified to New Times that he likes Dow personally but would prefer that Dow reforms how he operates.
Woody said he would work with Dow, but changes must be made.
“Dan has worn his partisanship on his sleeve as DA. I, many of us, are extremely uncomfortable with that,” Woody said. “It’s a public trust issue; nobody should be scared of the DA. … I will let him know my feelings on this.”
Woody and Dantona don’t see eye to eye on local energy issues. Woody wants Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to shut down in five years, and he’s concerned it sits on a fault line. He’s also a proponent of banning offshore wind development along the Central Coast. The state and county should work together to plan future energy development on more remote sites that aren’t ecologically significant, he added.
“You would not put a landfill next to a high school,” Woody said.
Dantona agreed that Diablo Canyon isn’t the safest energy source because of the dangers of storing nuclear waste near the local community. He would like to see the region shift to renewable energy, but it would require a sustainable way to backfill energy demand.
“If we turn [Diablo Canyon] off, in order to backfill our energy, we’re going to have to use fossil fuel energy, like coal natural gas, things that have a huge carbon footprint, that are going to warm our planet and destroy the environment,” he said.
The two also differ on the condition of the Los Osos Groundwater Basin. According to Woody, the basin is in overdraft and seawater contamination is growing. To Dantona, the term “overdraft” is misleading.
“The amount we’re pumping is underneath the sustainable yield number. So, that’s not overdraft,” Dantona said. “We have bigger issues that we need to tackle, and that has to do with pressure and saltwater intrusion.”
But the opponents are united on the need for a building moratorium in Los Osos. Dantona said he wouldn’t have voted to lift it, while Woody wants to reimplement the ban on development until water levels are adequate.
“The last piece of the puzzle nobody wants to talk about is it’s not enough to put in the proper water and infrastructure for Los Osos or near coastal communities,” Woody said. “We need a plan put into place that will preserve the charm and character of all of these cultural communities for the next 100 years.” ∆
This article appears in May 21-28, 2026.