Salinas: who represents it, and who is running

California General Election (federal and state offices) consolidated with the City of Salinas General Municipal Election votes on 2026-11-03. It elects city: Mayor (two-year term) and City Council Districts 2, 3 and 5; city Measures G and H. U.S. Representative for CA-18; Governor (open seat) and other statewide offices; State Assembly District 29. No U.S. Senate contest and no State Senate District 17 contest in 2026. Monterey County, school and special-district contests were not read (county elections site blocked); school boards skipped per the brief..

Holding office13
the sitting council
On the ballot17
6 sitting members running again

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

Congressional district (city hall): California's 18th congressional district (City Hall and the whole city, on both the 119th map and the 2026/120th map) — Zoe Lofgren (Democratic)

1

Mayor

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Dennis Donohue Elected Mayor → Running Independent City of Salinas - City Council
Daniel Munoz Mayor Running Independent City of Salinas City Clerk - Elections & Voter Information (Qualified Candidates)
Hezekiah Gonzalez Mayor Running Independent City of Salinas City Clerk - Elections & Voter Information (Qualified Candidates)
Peter Szalai Mayor Running Independent City of Salinas City Clerk - Elections & Voter Information (Qualified Candidates)
2

Councilmember — District 2

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Tony Barrera ✉️ Elected Councilmember → Running Independent District 2 City of Salinas - Councilmember, District 2
Jose Guerra Councilmember Running Independent District 2 City of Salinas City Clerk - Elections & Voter Information (Qualified Candidates)
3

Councilmember — District 3

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Margaret D'Arrigo ✉️ Elected Councilmember → Running Independent District 3 City of Salinas - Councilmember, District 3
Brenton Bagley Councilmember Running Independent District 3 City of Salinas City Clerk - Elections & Voter Information (Qualified Candidates)
Cary Swensen Councilmember Running Independent District 3 City of Salinas City Clerk - Elections & Voter Information (Qualified Candidates)
4

Councilmember — District 5

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Andrew Sandoval ✉️ Elected Councilmember → Running Independent District 5 City of Salinas - Councilmember, District 5
Irma C Lopez Councilmember Running Independent District 5 City of Salinas City Clerk - Elections & Voter Information (Qualified Candidates)
5

Councilmember

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Aurelio Salazar ✉️ Elected Councilmember Independent District 6 City of Salinas - Councilmember, District 6
Gloria De La Rosa ✉️ Elected Councilmember Independent District 4 City of Salinas - Councilmember, District 4
Jose Luis Barajas Elected Councilmember Independent District 1 City of Salinas - City Council
6

Governor

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Gavin Newsom Elected Governor Democratic Office of Governor Gavin Newsom (news releases dated 2026-10-21/22)
Steve Hilton Governor Running Republican Santa Cruz County Elections Department - Contact Candidates, contests on the November 3, 2026 ballot (state and federal names from the SOS certified list)
Xavier Becerra Governor Running Democratic Santa Cruz County Elections Department - Contact Candidates, contests on the November 3, 2026 ballot (state and federal names from the SOS certified list)
7

State Assembly Member — AD-29

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Robert Rivas Elected State Assembly Member → Running Democratic California State Assembly - Assemblymembers
Dennis P Sanchez State Assembly Member Running Republican Santa Cruz County Elections Department - Contact Candidates, contests on the November 3, 2026 ballot (state and federal names from the SOS certified list)
8

State Senator — SD-17

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
John Laird Elected State Senator Democratic California State Senate - Senators
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-18

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Zoe Lofgren Elected U.S. Representative → Running Democratic U.S. House of Representatives - Directory of Representatives (California 18th)
Shane Lewis U.S. Representative Running Republican Santa Cruz County Elections Department - Contact Candidates, contests on the November 3, 2026 ballot (state and federal names from the SOS certified list)
i

Notes on this record

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

  • Municipal: Salinas is a charter city with a Council-City Manager government; the Mayor is elected at large for two years and six Councilmembers by district for four years, three seats every two years (City Clerk's Elections & Voter Information page). No other city-wide elected office. Roster and term dates from https://www.salinas.gov/City-Hall/Council (cityofsalinas.org now redirects to salinas.gov), District 2-6 pages for names, seats, official districtN@salinas.gov emails and photos (linked, not copied); retrieved 2026-10-23. The council's Lincoln Avenue office address and phone were not copied. Margaret D'Arrigo's term is shown as December 2024 - December 2026.
  • City 2026 cycle: the City Clerk page lists 'Upcoming Elections: November 3, 2026 - District 2, 3, 5 and Mayor'; nomination period July 13 - August 7, 2026; 'Qualified Candidates': Tony Barrera and Jose Guerra (D2); Margaret D'Arrigo, Cary Swensen and Brenton Bagley (D3); Irma C Lopez and Andrew Sandoval (D5); Peter Szalai, Daniel Munoz, Dennis Donohue and Hezekiah Gonzalez (Mayor). Incumbency is from the City Council roster. Non-partisan: party null, partyShort 'None'. The page also links arguments in favour of city Measures G and H (not read). Next municipal election after 2026: November 2028 (Districts 1, 4, 6, whose terms expire November 2028, and the Mayor's two-year seat).
  • Districts covering the city: City Hall (coordinates 36.6749275,-121.6578538, taken from the City's own map link) and a 9x9 grid over 36.63-36.73 N, 121.70-121.57 W were queried against the Census Geocoder coordinates endpoint on both the Current_Current (2026/120th lines) and ACS2025_Current (119th) vintages, keeping only the 33 points placed in 'Salinas city'. All 33 fell in CA-18, SD-17 and AD-29 on both vintages, so the whole city is in one congressional, one Senate and one Assembly district (slivers narrower than ~1.3 km could be missed). CA-19 (Panetta) and AD-30 (Addis) cover nearby Monterey County but no sampled Salinas point.
  • Sitting officials: U.S. Representative Lofgren (California 18th) from https://www.house.gov/representatives, cross-checked with the CC0 @unitedstates legislators-current.json (bioguide L000397); photo linked from clerk.house.gov. Senators Padilla and Schiff from the CC0 dataset. State Senator John Laird (D-17) from senate.ca.gov/senators; Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-29, ballot designation 'California Assembly Speaker') from assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers. Governor Gavin Newsom from gov.ca.gov news releases dated 21-22 October 2026.
  • Candidates (federal and state): read from the Santa Cruz County Elections Department's 'Contact Candidates - contests that will appear on the ballot' page, which says the 'Certified list of state and federal candidates comes from Secretary of State' (certified list issued August 27, 2026) and prints party preference and ballot designation for Governor, statewide offices, U.S. Representative 18th and 19th and State Assembly 28th-30th, each with 'Incumbent:'. It is a stand-in for Monterey County, which is blocked; CA-18 and AD-29 both extend into Santa Cruz County's ballot. CA-18: Zoe Lofgren (D, incumbent) vs Shane Lewis (R). Governor: Xavier Becerra (D) vs Steve Hilton (R). AD-29: Robert Rivas (D, incumbent) vs Dennis P Sanchez (R). The page also prints mailing addresses, phones and emails for some candidates; none were copied (only a campaign website). The SOS certified list PDF on elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov was NOT fetched, per instruction (that host answers robots.txt with 403).
  • Not reached: www.montereycountyelections.us has no robots.txt (404) but its home page redirects to www.countyofmonterey.gov/government/departments-a-h/elections/home, which answered HTTP 403 (Akamai 'Access Denied'); www.countyofmonterey.gov/robots.txt is also an Akamai 403, so nothing further was requested from that host and no alternative route was tried. voterguide.sos.ca.gov answers robots.txt with an S3 AccessDenied 403, so it was treated as not allowed (no statewide candidate statements read). www.sanbenitocountyca.gov is an Akamai 403 even on robots.txt; sbcvote.us now redirects to an unrelated sports site (not used). Monterey County, school and special-district contests on the Salinas ballot are therefore not recorded.
  • Robots/terms: www.salinas.gov robots.txt (User-agent *) disallows District-1 and Office-of-the-Mayor/* council pages among others; neither was opened; no crawl-delay. City Disclosure & Use Policy read first (warranty disclaimer, hyperlink policy; no reuse restriction). votescount.santacruzcountyca.gov and www.santacruzcountyca.gov have no robots.txt (404); the County Terms of Use (read first) is a browse-wrap template with no restriction on reading public pages. house.gov, senate.ca.gov, assembly.ca.gov and gov.ca.gov robots allow the pages used; geocoding.geo.census.gov, unitedstates.github.io and clerk.house.gov have no robots.txt. One User-Agent throughout; no terms accepted, nothing requested, no logins. No street addresses, phones or personal emails in person rows; standsFor null for everyone (no candidate statements read). Write-ins and primary losers excluded.
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Sources

Prepared 2026-10-23. Nomination papers are never opened: they carry home addresses. After voting day a candidate list becomes a result; these rows are reconciled, not deleted.