Bakersfield: who represents it, and who is running
California General Election (federal and state offices) consolidated with the City of Bakersfield General Municipal Election votes on 2026-11-03. It elects city: Council Wards 1, 3, 4 and 7 (four-year terms ending November 2030). U.S. Representatives for CA-20 and CA-22; Governor (open seat) and other statewide offices; State Senate District 12 and Assembly District 32 (City Hall) among the legislative seats (SD-16 and AD-35 also cover part of the city). No U.S. Senate seat is up in California in 2026..
Holding office15
the sitting council
On the ballot21
6 sitting members running again
The official candidate list ↗ · What Bakersfield is like — the /local page
Congressional district (city hall): City Hall is in California's 20th congressional district on the 119th Congress map and in the 22nd on the 2026 (120th) map; the city spans CA-20 and CA-22 on both maps — Vince Fong (Republican)
1
Mayor
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Karen K. Goh ✉️ Elected | Mayor | Independent | City of Bakersfield |
2
City Council Member — Ward 1
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eric Arias ✉️ Elected | City Council Member → Running | Independent | Ward 1 | City of Bakersfield |
| Mercy Peña | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 1 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
3
City Council Member — Ward 3
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ken Weir ✉️ Elected | City Council Member | Independent | Ward 3 | City of Bakersfield |
| Cassie Bittle ✉️ | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 3 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
| Juan Carlos “JC” Llamas ✉️ | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 3 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
| Kathryn Halling ✉️ | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 3 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
| Pedro Naveiras | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 3 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
| Seth Hewett | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 3 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
4
City Council Member — Ward 4
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bob Smith ✉️ Elected | City Council Member → Running | Independent | Ward 4 | City of Bakersfield |
| Ryan Crowl ✉️ | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 4 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
5
City Council Member — Ward 7
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manpreet Kaur ✉️ Elected | City Council Member → Running | Independent | Ward 7 | City of Bakersfield |
| Angie Valdez | City Council Member Running | Independent | Ward 7 | City of Bakersfield, City Clerk |
6
State Assembly Member — AD-35
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrae Gonzales ✉️ Elected | City Council Member → Running for State Assembly Member | Independent | AD-35 | City of Bakersfield |
7
City Council Member
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Larry Koman ✉️ Elected | City Council Member | Independent | Ward 5 | City of Bakersfield |
| Zack Bashirtash ✉️ Elected | City Council Member | Independent | Ward 6 | City of Bakersfield |
8
Governor
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gavin Newsom Elected | Governor | Democratic | Governor's Proclamation for the November 3, 2026 General Election, via the Secretary of State | |
| Steve Hilton | Governor Running | Republican | California Secretary of State | |
| Xavier Becerra | Governor Running | Democratic | California Secretary of State |
9
State Assembly Member — AD-32
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stan Ellis Elected | State Assembly Member | Republican | California State Assembly | |
| David Couch acclaimed | State Assembly Member Running | Republican | California Secretary of State |
10
State Senator — SD-12
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shannon Grove Elected | State Senator | Republican | California State Senate | |
| Nathan Magsig | State Senator Running | Republican | California Secretary of State | |
| William Brown Jr. | State Senator Running | Libertarian | California Secretary of State |
11
U.S. Senator
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam B. Schiff Elected | U.S. Senator | Democratic | @unitedstates congress-legislators (CC0) | |
| Alex Padilla Elected | U.S. Senator | Democratic | @unitedstates congress-legislators (CC0) |
12
U.S. Representative — CA-20
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vince Fong Elected | U.S. Representative → Running | Republican | U.S. House of Representatives | |
| Sandra Van Scotter | U.S. Representative Running | Democratic | California Secretary of State |
13
U.S. Representative — CA-22
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David G. Valadao Elected | U.S. Representative → Running | Republican | U.S. House of Representatives | |
| Randy Villegas | U.S. Representative Running | Democratic | California Secretary of State |
i
Notes on this record
How the lists were read, and what could not be.
- Municipal: Mayor (elected city-wide) and 7 Councilmembers by ward; no other city-wide elected office. www.bakersfieldcity.us (robots.txt: no disallow for *; crawl-delay 20 named only for Siteimprove, honoured anyway at 12-20 s) is a CivicPlus HCMS site whose page bodies are rendered client-side; the text was read from the City's own content store content.civicplus.com (robots.txt allows; read-only anonymous token embedded in every public page, no login) - the same items the public pages display. Roster from the City Council page items (last modified 2026-02-19 / 2026-03-26) and each councilmember page (term-expiry lines, official emails). Seven members: Arias W1, Gonzales W2, Weir W3, Smith W4, Koman W5, Bashirtash W6, Kaur W7 (Vice Mayor). Four councilmember pages give only the shared City_Council@bakersfieldcity.us address.
- City 2026 election: the City Clerk's Elections page says regular municipal elections are consolidated with the statewide election in November of even-numbered years; 2026 positions are Council Wards 1, 3, 4 & 7. Candidates from the Clerk's 'Qualified Candidates' PDF (stamped 8/17/2026 2:42 PM; nomination period July 13 - August 7). The PDF prints phone numbers and email addresses: no phone copied; only emails that are plainly campaign addresses were kept, personal-looking ones left null. Ward 3 is open (Weir not listed). Next municipal election: Mayor and Wards 2, 5, 6 (terms expire November 2028) - 2028, exact date not confirmed on an official page. Kern County Elections (kernvote.com) and kerncounty.com returned Akamai 'Access Denied' to robots.txt, so no county sample ballot or list of city measures could be read.
- Congressional/legislative coverage: Census geocoder (coordinates endpoint) sampled on an 18x18 grid over the city's bounding box; 126 points fell in Bakersfield city. 2026 map: CA-20 (82) and CA-22 (44); 119th map: CA-20 (75) and CA-22 (51). State Senate SD-12 and SD-16; Assembly AD-32 and AD-35 on both vintages. Slivers narrower than the grid spacing (~1.3-2.3 km) could be missed. tigerweb.geo.census.gov returned 'Request Rejected' to robots.txt and was not used.
- Federal: house.gov/representatives (California 20th, 22nd rows) cross-checked with the CC0 @unitedstates legislators-current.json; senators from the CC0 dataset (senate.gov robots.txt returned 403). clerk.house.gov photo URLs confirmed by HEAD request (200 image/jpeg). Both representatives are on the SOS certified list for their seats.
- Candidates (federal and state): California Secretary of State Certified List of Candidates for the November 3, 2026 General Election, dated 2026-08-27, retrieved 2026-10-22 (elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov robots.txt returns 403 AccessDenied; the PDF itself is public). SD-12 is open (Grove not on the list; Magsig R vs Brown Jr. L). AD-32 has a single certified candidate, David Couch (R), so it is counted unopposed; sitting member Stan Ellis is not on the list. Governor Newsom from the SOS-hosted Governor's Proclamation; seat open.
- Robots/terms: house.gov, senate.ca.gov, assembly.ca.gov, content.civicplus.com allow these paths; geocoding.geo.census.gov and pub-bakersfield.escribemeetings.com have no robots.txt (404). eScribe meeting HTML read, but eScribe FileStream PDF downloads returned a 'Verifying your browser' challenge (Cloudflare) - not bypassed. NetFile public portal uses reCAPTCHA and was not used. One plain User-Agent throughout; no terms accepted, no logins, nothing requested. No home addresses, phones or personal emails recorded; standsFor null for everyone. Write-ins and primary losers excluded.
s
Sources
Prepared 2026-10-22. Nomination papers are never opened: they carry home addresses. After voting day a candidate list becomes a result; these rows are reconciled, not deleted.
- City of Bakersfield, City Clerk — Qualified Candidates, City Council Wards 1, 3, 4 & 7, General Municipal Election November 3, 2026 (list stamped 8/17/2026 2:42 PM) 8
- City of Bakersfield — City Council page and councilmember pages (content served from the City's CivicPlus content store) 7
- California Secretary of State — Certified List of Candidates, November 3, 2026 General Election (dated 2026-08-27) 7
- @unitedstates congress-legislators (CC0) — senate.gov robots.txt returned Akamai 403 2
- U.S. House of Representatives — Directory of Representatives (California) 2
- Governor's Proclamation for the November 3, 2026 General Election, via the Secretary of State 1
- City of Bakersfield — Meet Our Mayor (CivicPlus content item, last modified 2025-07-03) 1
- California State Senate — Senators 1
- California State Assembly — Assemblymembers 1