Santa Monica: who represents it, and who is running
California General Election (federal and state offices) consolidated with the City of Santa Monica General Municipal Election votes on 2026-11-03. It elects city: three four-year at-large City Council seats (the seats of Mayor Caroline Torosis, Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Zwick and Lana Negrete, whose terms expire December 2026), plus Rent Control Board, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board, Santa Monica College Board and Measure ES (a $495 school parcel tax). U.S. Representative CA-36; Governor (open seat) and other statewide offices; State Senate District 24 (open seat) and State Assembly District 51. No U.S. Senate seat is up in California in 2026..
Holding office13
the sitting council
On the ballot20
4 sitting members running again
The official candidate list ↗ · What Santa Monica is like — the /local page
Congressional district (city hall): California's 36th congressional district (City Hall, 1685 Main St; the whole city on the 2026/120th map sample) — Ted Lieu (Democratic)
1
Councilmember
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barry Snell Elected | Councilmember | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica |
| Dan Hall Elected | Councilmember | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica |
| Ellis Raskin Elected | Councilmember | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica |
| Jesse Zwick Elected | Councilmember | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica |
| Natalya Zernitskaya Elected | Councilmember | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica |
| Caroline Torosis Elected | Mayor → Running for Councilmember | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica |
| Lana Negrete Elected | Councilmember → Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica |
| Ashley Oelsen | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Brett Morrow | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Daniel Ivanov | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Derrick Townsend | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Doug Trussler | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Eli Gill | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Ericka Lesley | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Lindsay Davis | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Phil Brock | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
| Wade Kelley | Councilmember Running | Independent | At-Large | City of Santa Monica City Clerk |
2
Governor
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gavin Newsom Elected | Governor | Democratic | Office of Governor Gavin Newsom | |
| Steve Hilton | Governor Running | Republican | California Secretary of State | |
| Xavier Becerra | Governor Running | Democratic | California Secretary of State |
3
State Assembly Member — AD-51
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rick Chavez Zbur Elected | State Assembly Member → Running | Democratic | California State Assembly | |
| Colin D. Hernandez | State Assembly Member Running | Democratic | California Secretary of State |
4
State Senator — SD-24
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benjamin Allen Elected | State Senator | Democratic | California State Senate | |
| Brian Goldsmith | State Senator Running | Democratic | California Secretary of State | |
| John M. Erickson | State Senator Running | Democratic | California Secretary of State |
5
U.S. Senator
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam B. Schiff Elected | U.S. Senator | Democratic | @unitedstates congress-legislators | |
| Alex Padilla Elected | U.S. Senator | Democratic | @unitedstates congress-legislators |
6
U.S. Representative — CA-36
| Name | Office | Party / slate | Seat | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ted Lieu Elected | U.S. Representative → Running | Democratic | U.S. House of Representatives | |
| Houston Brignano | U.S. Representative Running | Republican | California Secretary of State |
i
Notes on this record
How the lists were read, and what could not be.
- Municipal: the seven Councilmembers from the City's 'City Council Members' page (smgov.net/departments/council/content.aspx?id=13705, 'Last updated: 12/10/2025', read 2026-10-31): Mayor Caroline Torosis, Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Zwick, Lana Negrete, Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, Barry Snell, Natalya Zernitskaya. santamonica.gov/topic-explainers/city-council: 'seven members elected at-large for staggered four-year terms. Every two years, after each election, the City Council selects one of its members to serve as Mayor and another to serve as Mayor Pro Tempore.' No other city-wide elected office is named (the Rent Control Board is a separately elected city board, not recorded as people here). The members page shows only the shared Council Office phone, fax and City Hall address: none recorded. The only emails are shared mailboxes (council.mailbox@santamonica.gov), not recorded per person. Photos linked from the members page; Jesse Zwick has no photo there.
- City 2026 election: the City Clerk's 'November 3, 2026 Election' page (santamonica.gov/elections/2026-11-03, read 2026-10-31) lists 12 City Council 4-year candidates with ballot designations: Wade Kelley, Ashley Oelsen, Ericka Lesley, Lindsay Davis, Lana Negrete, Phil Brock, Daniel Ivanov, Eli Gill, Brett Morrow, Caroline Torosis, Derrick Townsend, Doug Trussler; 'No Write-In Candidates filed Nomination Papers.' The page does not state the number of seats; three is inferred from the three current terms that the members page says expire in December 2026. Also on the city ballot (not recorded as people): College Board (Tom Peters, Oscar de la Torre, Luis Barrera Castanon, Kera Blades-Snell, Sion Roy), Rent Control Board (Sue Himmelrich, Kurt Gonska, Soledad Marcial, Zoe Muntaner, Heather Thomason), School Board (Laurie Lieberman, Harry Leshner, Robbie Staenberg, Stacy Rouse, Alicia Mignano), Measure ES. Municipal offices are non-partisan: party null / partyShort 'None'. Next municipal election after this one: November 2028 (the four seats whose terms expire December 2028).
- standsFor: only Caroline Torosis's, quoted from her candidate statement on the City Clerk's candidate page. The other candidate pages (11 requests, 1 s apart) were answered with an Imperva-style 'Pardon Our Interruption ... made us think you were a bot' challenge page; it was not bypassed and no further santamonica.gov requests were made, so the other candidates' statements and campaign links were not read and standsFor is null for them. Candidate headshots on the City page are hosted on cityofsantamonica.getbynder.com and not linked.
- District coverage: an 8x8 coordinate grid over the city's bounding box (-118.52 to -118.44, 33.995 to 34.05) sent to the Census Geocoder (Current_Current); 41 points fell inside 'Santa Monica city', no errors: all 41 in CA-36 (120th Congress / 2026 map), SD-24 and AD-51. City Hall (1685 Main St) geocodes to the same three. Slivers narrower than the ~1 km grid spacing could be missed.
- Federal: Senators Padilla and Schiff (CC0 @unitedstates legislators-current.json) carried over from the us-concord record of 2026-10-31; Ted Lieu (CA-36) from the house.gov directory as recorded in us-los-angeles, term re-checked today in legislators-current.json. No U.S. Senate contest is on the 2026 California list.
- Candidates (federal and state): California Secretary of State 'Certified List of Candidates for the November 3, 2026, General Election', dated 27 August 2026, read from the copy already fetched in this session (elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov answers 403 AccessDenied to robots.txt, so no request was made to that host by this agent). CA-36: Ted W. Lieu (D, incumbent) vs Houston Brignano (R). SD-24: John M. Erickson (D, 'Councilmember') vs Brian Goldsmith (D) — open seat, Ben Allen not on the list. AD-51: Rick Chavez Zbur* (D) vs Colin D. Hernandez (D). Governor rows (Newsom; Becerra, Hilton) carried over from us-concord. State legislators from senate.ca.gov/senators and assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers as read earlier today in this session.
- Robots/terms: santamonica.gov robots.txt ('User-agent: * Disallow: /admin'; no Claude group, no crawl-delay); smgov.net robots.txt disallows '/' for '*' but explicitly allows /departments/council/content.aspx?id=13705 (the members page) — only that allowed page was read. lavote.gov robots.txt 404; no lavote.gov page was used. geocoding.geo.census.gov robots 404. No terms accepted, no forms, no logins. No home addresses, phones or personal emails recorded.
s
Sources
Prepared 2026-10-31. 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 Santa Monica City Clerk — November 3, 2026 Election, Candidates (City Council 4-year) 10
- City of Santa Monica — City Council Members (smgov.net; page last updated 12/10/2025) 7
- California Secretary of State — Certified List of Candidates, November 3, 2026 General Election (dated 2026-08-27) 4
- @unitedstates congress-legislators — legislators-current.json 2
- California Secretary of State — Certified List of Candidates for the November 3, 2026, General Election (certified 27 August 2026) 2
- California State Senate — Senators 1
- Office of Governor Gavin Newsom — About 1
- California State Assembly — Assemblymembers 1
- U.S. House of Representatives — Directory of Representatives (California) 1