Tenorio-Barnes set to launch campaign for 2026 Guam elections amid PUA scandal
- Admin
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 1 hour ago
By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Lt. Gov. Joshua Tenorio will officially launch his bid to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor next year, with Sen. Tina Muna Barnes as his running mate.
The Tenorio-Barnes ticket will jump into an anticipated three-way primary for the party’s standard bearer, setting up a clash with Sen. Joe San Agustin, who is running with former Sen. Dwayne San Nicolas, and Sen. Therese Terlaje, who is predicted to handpick Sen. Chris Barnett as her running mate.
While San Agustin declared his gubernatorial run as early as July this year, Terlaje is biding her time. Tenorio and Barnes will make their official announcement at 5 p.m. Friday at Fort Apugan in Agana Heights.
Tenorio is headed for a challenging campaign amid the explosive scandal involving his relatives, who are facing federal fraud and money-laundering charges for allegedly scheming to file $1.9 million in fraudulent Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims.
Along with three labor employees, indicted in federal court were Charissa M. Tenorio, the lieutenant governor’s sister; Matthew Topasna, his partner; Frankie Rosalin, the father of Charissa Tenorio’s children; and Tina Sanchez, Rosalin’s mother.
The trial is anticipated to be scheduled for either June or September, at the height of the election campaign.
“My family members are going to go through a process where they should be," Tenorio said in an interview with Pacific Island Times. "They are entitled to the presumption of innocence, but they're also entitled to a fair judicial process.”
He acknowledged the adversity he is facing on the campaign trail.
“It is a big hardship,” he said. “It is something that I did not expect and something that I never thought would happen.”
Tenorio, who served as the policy and community relations director for the Judiciary of Guam in 2011, vowed to keep a distance from the case.
“I cannot fight that for them. They have to do that on their own,” he said.
“I am not going to be utilizing my current position or my campaign to tip the scales for them,” he said, pointing out that his embattled relatives will “have to be able to fight their case.”
The Guam Election Commission will begin accepting candidate packets for the 2026 primary election for governor, lieutenant governor, senator and congressional delegate. The primary is slated for Aug. 1 and winners will advance to the general elections on Nov. 3.
Tenorio said his “path has been to focus on the needs of the people.”
He said the current administration has managed to “restore and clean up our government finances,” but Guam’s unprecedented growth created new challenges.
“We are now dealing with a little different situation than when I first came into office. Our people are now facing an affordability crisis,” said Tenorio, who is serving his second term as Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero's lieutenant governor.
Leon Guerrero and Tenorio were the first Democrats to hold the Adelup seats in 2018, succeeding 16 years of Republican administrations.
The Leon Guerrero-Tenorio administration was challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic, which ironically brought an unprecedented windfall to Guam, despite the 2020 economic shutdown.
“I really believe that my calling is to provide the leadership to be able to improve their quality of life, to make sure that our island is not going to be on a track like Oahu, where the price of living on the island is so unattainable that people have lived elsewhere,” he added.
In the announcement flyer, the Tenorio-Barnes team explained the location choice for the launch of their campaign, noting that Fort Apugan sits above "the center of politics, commerce and tourism.”
“There is no better place to begin this journey than a landmark that represents both the importance of the past and the opportunities of the future," read the digital flyer.
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