Modesto: who represents it, and who is running

California General Election (federal and state offices) consolidated with the City of Modesto General Municipal Election votes on 2026-11-03. It elects city: Modesto City Council Districts 2, 4 and 5 (the Mayor and Districts 1, 3 and 6 are not up until 2028); Modesto City Schools Board of Education Trustee Areas 1, 3, 5 and 7 (skipped per the brief). U.S. Representatives for CA-5 and CA-13 (2026 map); Governor (open seat) and other statewide offices; State Senate District 4 (open seat) and State Assembly District 22. Stanislaus County, other school-district and special-district contests and measures were not read (county elections site blocked). No U.S. Senate seat is up in California in 2026..

Holding office14
the sitting council
On the ballot15
6 sitting members running again

The official candidate list ↗ · What Modesto is like — the /local page

Congressional district (city hall): California's 5th congressional district (City Hall) on the 119th map; California's 13th (City Hall) on the 2026 (120th) map. The city spans CA-5 and CA-13 on both maps — Adam Gray (Democratic)

1

Mayor

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Sue Zwahlen ✉️ Elected Mayor Independent City of Modesto
2

Councilmember — District 2

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Eric E. Alvarez ✉️ Elected Councilmember → Running Independent District 2 City of Modesto
Jon Rodriguez Councilmember Running Independent District 2 City of Modesto, City Clerk
Juan Telles ✉️ Councilmember Running Independent District 2 City of Modesto, City Clerk
3

Councilmember — District 4

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Nick Bavaro ✉️ Elected acclaimed Councilmember → Running Independent District 4 City of Modesto
4

Councilmember — District 5

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Jeremiah Williams ✉️ Elected Councilmember → Running Independent District 5 City of Modesto
Jared Sylvia Councilmember Running Independent District 5 City of Modesto, City Clerk
5

Councilmember

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Chris Ricci ✉️ Elected Councilmember Independent District 3 City of Modesto
David Wright ✉️ Elected Councilmember Independent District 6 City of Modesto
Rosa Escutia-Braaton ✉️ Elected Councilmember Independent District 1 City of Modesto
6

Governor

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Gavin Newsom Elected Governor Democratic Governor's Proclamation for the November 3, 2026 General Election (SOS PDF: 'I, GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of the State of California')
Steve Hilton Governor Running Republican California Secretary of State
Xavier Becerra Governor Running Democratic California Secretary of State
7

State Assembly Member — AD-22

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Juan Alanis Elected acclaimed State Assembly Member → Running Republican California State Assembly
8

State Senator — SD-4

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Marie Alvarado-Gil Elected State Senator Republican California State Senate
Alexandra Duarte State Senator Running Republican California Secretary of State
Jaron Brandon State Senator Running Democratic California Secretary of State
9

U.S. Senator

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Adam B. Schiff Elected U.S. Senator Democratic @unitedstates congress-legislators (CC0); senate.gov not fetched
Alex Padilla Elected U.S. Senator Democratic @unitedstates congress-legislators (CC0); senate.gov not fetched
10

U.S. Representative — CA-5

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Tom McClintock Elected U.S. Representative → Running Republican U.S. House of Representatives
Michael Masuda U.S. Representative Running Democratic California Secretary of State
11

U.S. Representative — CA-13

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Adam Gray Elected U.S. Representative → Running Democratic U.S. House of Representatives
Kevin Lincoln U.S. Representative Running Republican California Secretary of State
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Notes on this record

How the lists were read, and what could not be.

  • Municipal: Mayor (elected at large) and six Councilmembers elected by district, per the City Clerk's Election Information page ('The Modesto City Council has seven members, including the Mayor ... nonpartisan ... four-year terms') and Measure M (2008) district elections. Charter officers (City Manager, City Attorney, City Clerk) are Council-appointed, so no other city-wide elected office. Roster, term-expiration and first-elected years, and official @modestogov.com emails from https://www.modestogov.com/706/Council-Members (retrieved 2026-10-22); photo URLs from each member's own page (linked, not copied). Jeremiah Williams is Vice Mayor. The Council office's street address and phone numbers were not copied.
  • City 2026 cycle: the City Clerk's Election Information page says the 'next regularly scheduled Municipal Election is November 3, 2026, for the offices of City Council District 2, Council District 4, and Council District 5'; nomination period July 13 - August 7, 2026. The Clerk's 'Election Candidate List - Sign Up List' (Final Lists, nomination closed 5:00 p.m. Aug 7, 2026) lists qualified candidates: D2 Eric E. Alvarez (incumbent), Juan Telles, Jon Rodriguez; D4 Nick Bavaro (incumbent) only (Matthew Gonzalez and Tyler Anthony Slacks pulled papers and 'DID NOT RETURN'); D5 Jeremiah Williams (incumbent), Jared Sylvia. That list prints candidates' phone numbers, personal emails and in some cases home addresses - NONE were copied; only JuanforModesto@gmail.com is recorded, as a plainly campaign-named address. Bavaro is the only qualified D4 candidate (unopposed); whether D4 still appears on the ballot or is filled by appointment in lieu of election was not confirmed on an official page. Non-partisan: party null / partyShort 'None'. Next municipal election after 2026: Mayor and Districts 1, 3 and 6 in 2028 (term expirations '2028' on the Council Members page; exact date not stated).
  • Congressional and legislative districts covering the city: a 12x12 grid over the city's bounding box (37.595-37.715 N, 121.105-120.915 W, spacing about 1.5 km) was queried point by point against the Census Geocoder coordinates endpoint, keeping only points placed in 'Modesto' (place 0648354): 55-56 points inside. 2026 map (Current_Current, 120th): CA-5 at 31, CA-13 at 24. 119th map (ACS2025_Current): CA-5 at 42, CA-13 at 14. State Senate SD-4 and Assembly AD-22 at every inside point on both vintages. One request returned an error. City Hall (Census address match for the City Council's published office address, coordinates 37.64069,-121.00042) is CA-5 on the 119th map, CA-13 on the 2026 map, SD-4, AD-22. Narrow slivers could be missed at this spacing.
  • Sitting U.S. Representatives from https://www.house.gov/representatives (California 5th McClintock, 13th Gray; retrieved 2026-10-22), cross-checked with the CC0 @unitedstates legislators-current.json; photos linked from clerk.house.gov. Both are incumbent-running in districts that cover part of Modesto on the 2026 map. U.S. Senators Padilla (Class 3, term to 2029) and Schiff (Class 1, term to 2031) from the CC0 dataset; no U.S. Senate contest is on the 2026 SOS certified list.
  • Candidates (federal and state): California Secretary of State 'Certified List of Candidates for the November 3, 2026, General Election', dated 27 August 2026, retrieved 2026-10-22 via the SOS General Election page. The list marks state-office incumbents with '*' but not federal ones; federal incumbency from house.gov. CA-5: Michael Masuda (D) vs Tom McClintock (R). CA-13: Adam Gray (D) vs Kevin Lincoln (R). Governor: Xavier Becerra (D) vs Steve Hilton (R); sitting Governor Gavin Newsom from the Governor's Proclamation PDF. SD-4: sitting Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil (R, per senate.ca.gov/senators) is not on the list; Jaron Brandon (D) vs Alexandra Duarte (R). AD-22: Juan Alanis* (R) is the only candidate (unopposed). Party preference and ballot designation as printed.
  • Not reached: Stanislaus County Registrar of Voters (www.stanvote.com) answers a Cloudflare managed challenge (HTTP 403 'Just a moment...') even to /robots.txt, so the county candidate list, sample ballot and county contests were not read and no alternative route to that data was tried. The city contests rest on the City Clerk's own Final Lists.
  • Robots/terms: www.modestogov.com robots.txt (User-agent * rules apply to our agent; ClaudeBot etc. are listed separately with the same Disallows) disallows search, calendar, map, RSS, admin and similar paths, none fetched; Crawl-delay 10 honoured (11 s between requests). City terms: Privacy Policy Section N 'Ownership Statement' - site information 'unless otherwise indicated, is considered in the public domain', photographs may be copyrighted. www.sos.ca.gov robots.txt is empty (200); elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov returns an S3 'AccessDenied' XML on /robots.txt (no robots file; the linked PDFs are public). house.gov, senate.ca.gov and assembly.ca.gov robots allow these pages; geocoding.geo.census.gov, unitedstates.github.io and clerk.house.gov have no robots.txt (404). One User-Agent throughout; no terms accepted, nothing requested, no logins. No home addresses, phones or personal emails recorded; standsFor null for everyone (no candidate statements are published on the City or SOS pages read). Write-in candidates and primary losers excluded; school-board contests skipped per the brief.
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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.