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City of Albany · Statewide General Election

Albany City Council

This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.

On the ballot

This person would hold one of five at-large seats on Albany's City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. The Council selects its own Mayor and Vice Mayor each year rather than electing either separately. Two of the five seats are up this cycle, decided by proportional ranked-choice voting -- not a simple top-two count -- where a candidate needs just over one-third of the vote to win a seat. Terms run four years, staggered so the other three seats come up again in 2028.

Five candidates are running for two seats on Albany's City Council. Incumbent Robin D. López is running with first-time candidate Aaron Tiedemann as part of the "Albany Forward" slate; López's fellow incumbent from 2022, John Anthony Miki, did not file for re-election, leaving his seat open. Jon Destin, Katherine Enos, and Chris McDaniels are each running on their own.

Albany's City Council has five at-large members who decide city ordinances, the budget, and land use, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager handling day-to-day operations. The Council -- not voters directly -- selects one of its own members to serve as Mayor and another as Vice Mayor each year. Terms run four years, staggered so this cycle's two open seats and 2028's other three never come up together.

The field splits into an established ticket and three independents: López and Tiedemann are campaigning together under the "Albany Forward" name, which has backed the winning candidate in three of the current council's five seats since 2020 (Preston Jordan in 2020 and 2024; López and John Miki in 2022). Destin, Enos, and McDaniels are each running on their own, with no prior campaign or council record to weigh.

How Albany's council elections actually work

This is not an ordinary top-two-vote-getters race. Albany elects its Council by proportional ranked-choice voting -- voters rank candidates in order of preference, and a candidate needs just over one-third of the vote (the "Droop quota") to win one of the two seats, with ballots for eliminated or over-threshold candidates transferring to voters' next choices until two candidates clear that bar. Albany adopted this system by ballot measure with 73% voter approval and used it for the first time in 2022, replacing a prior winner-take-all "block plurality" system. This app's own pick tool -- selecting up to two favorites -- is a simplified stand-in for that ranked ballot, not a literal match for how the real Nov. 3, 2026 ballot works.

Jon Destin

A first-time candidate whose filed ballot designation is Albany Business Owner. This dataset found no independent news coverage or campaign website for him; his campaign-finance filings are the fullest record available.

Strengths

not established in the sourcing found for this race -- a local business background is his only stated credential.

Trade-offs

as a first-time candidate with no located public record beyond his filed paperwork, voters have little more than his name, occupation, and campaign-finance filing to go on.

Keep in mind

he is the only one of the five candidates with an itemized 2026 campaign-finance report on file -- $2,000 raised, $473.45 spent -- which says more about his paperwork than about his standing in the race.

Katherine Enos

A first-time candidate whose filed ballot designation is Small Business Owner. This dataset found no independent news coverage or campaign website for her. Her campaign has filed only an FPPC Form 470, a short-form statement candidates use to declare they do not expect to raise or spend more than $2,000 for the calendar year.

Strengths

not established in the sourcing found for this race.

Trade-offs

as a first-time candidate with no located public record beyond her filed paperwork, voters have little more than her name and occupation to go on.

Keep in mind

her Form 470 is a real, filed declaration that she is running a small-dollar campaign -- not a documented sourcing gap in this dataset.

Robin D. López

The incumbent, first elected to Council in 2022 as part of the Albany Forward slate; his filed ballot designation is Incumbent/Ecologist. He served as Vice Mayor in 2023 and, in December 2024, was selected by his fellow councilmembers as Mayor -- the first mayor of Latino and Indigenous ancestry in Albany's history. Raised in Richmond and a De Anza High School graduate, he holds a BA in Civil Engineering from San Francisco State (2015, after an earlier stint at Contra Costa College) and an MA from San Jose State, and is currently a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley; he lives in Albany's University Village with his wife and two children. This cycle he is running jointly with first-time candidate Aaron Tiedemann under the same Albany Forward banner that elected him and John Miki in 2022 -- Miki is not seeking re-election this cycle.

Strengths

a full term already on the Council plus a year as Mayor, and a slate ticket (Albany Forward) with a proven track record of winning both of this class's seats in 2022.

Trade-offs

this dataset found no independent news coverage evaluating his council or mayoral record specifically, only biographical profiles of his personal path to office.

Keep in mind

as of this dataset's retrieval, his and Tiedemann's joint committee has filed only organizational paperwork -- no itemized Form 460 report yet, so there is no 2026 fundraising total to weigh for him.

Chris McDaniels

A first-time candidate whose filed ballot designation is Public Works Manager (filed under his legal name, Christopher McDaniels, on his campaign paperwork). This dataset found no independent news coverage or campaign website for him. His campaign has filed only an FPPC Form 470, a short-form statement candidates use to declare they do not expect to raise or spend more than $2,000 for the calendar year.

Strengths

not established in the sourcing found for this race -- a public-works management background is his only stated credential.

Trade-offs

as a first-time candidate with no located public record beyond his filed paperwork, voters have little more than his name and occupation to go on.

Keep in mind

his Form 470 is a real, filed declaration that he is running a small-dollar campaign -- not a documented sourcing gap in this dataset.

Aaron Tiedemann

A repeat candidate whose filed ballot designation is Housing Policy Analyst. He ran for Council twice before without winning -- in 2020 and 2024, both times paired with current Councilmember Preston Jordan under the Albany Forward name, with Jordan winning both races. He and Jordan also jointly controlled two prior Albany ballot-measure committees: "Voter Choice Albany, Yes on Measure BB" and "Yes on 2024 Measure V" (the measure that extended Albany voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds for Council as well as school-board races). This cycle he is running jointly with incumbent Robin López rather than Jordan, under the same Albany Forward banner.

Strengths

two prior Council campaigns' worth of name recognition, plus a record of local ballot-measure advocacy on housing and voting-rights policy matching his stated occupation.

Trade-offs

he has lost his two previous Council bids; this is his third attempt at the seat, this time with a different running mate.

Keep in mind

as of this dataset's retrieval, his and López's joint committee has filed only organizational paperwork -- no itemized Form 460 report yet, so there is no 2026 fundraising total to weigh for him.

Why is a sitting councilmember missing from this race?

In Albany's first proportional ranked-choice election in 2022, two candidates ran together as the "Albany Forward" slate and won both seats then up: John Miki and Robin López (a third slate member, former councilmember Nick Pilch, was eliminated). Miki went on to serve as Mayor before López. This cycle, the county's certified candidate list for Albany's two open seats does not include Miki's name at all -- he did not file for re-election. López is instead running with a new Albany Forward running mate, first-time candidate Aaron Tiedemann, leaving Miki's seat open to any of the field's other four candidates.

Source review: Strong (83/100) · 9 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.

Review note: FairVote -- "Proportional RCV improves diversity in Albany, and voters embrace it," read in full: explains Albany adopted proportional ranked-choice voting (a form of single transferable vote) by ballot measure with 73% voter approval, first used in 2022, replacing a prior "block plurality" system; walks round-by-round through the actual 2022 count for Albany's 2 seats up that cycle (Droop quota, just over one-third of the vote), which two candidates campaigning together as the "Albany Forward" slate -- John Miki and Robin López -- won, with a third slate member, former councilmember Nick Pilch, eliminated in round 2; and states the council's other 3 seats were up in 2024, so 2026 returns to a 2-seat cycle. may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • alamedacountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- own JSON API behind its "Candidate List" web app (electionId 260 = General Election - 11/03/2026, Official): the candidatelist/260 endpoint returns every race category countywide with no County category at all (zero Board of Supervisors/row-office/judicial seats on the Nov. 2026 general), and the racelist/260/600 endpoint names all 46 City-category races countywide, including the exact seven Berkeley races (four Council districts, Auditor, Rent Stabilization Board, School Directors) with their raceIds and vote-for-N seat counts -- confirming Alameda County publishes a unified countywide candidate document, unlike Santa Clara County.
  • alamedacountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- the same candidatelist app's per-race candidate-detail view (POST to /rov_app/candidatelist/ with electionId=260 and each Berkeley raceId), queried directly for all seven Berkeley races: returns each candidate's exact ballot designation, filing agency, and on-ballot status -- the same roster as the City Clerk's own Notice of Candidates, independently confirming all 23 names and designations.
  • albanyca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Albany -- official "City Council" page (read via a dated Internet Archive snapshot, captured 2026-02-16, after albanyca.gov itself returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass -- Akamai bot protection; the content is the city's own official page, not an archive-only source): states the Council is "five (5) members elected at large (Ranked Choice Voting)," that municipal elections are held "every two years at the November general election of even numbered years," and that "[t]he City Council selects one of its members to serve as Mayor" -- Mayor and Vice Mayor are not separately elected. Names the sitting roster as of the archive date: Vice Mayor Jennifer Hansen-Romero, Preston Jordan, Robin D. López, Mayor Peggy McQuaid, and John Anthony Miki.
  • fairvote.org (opens in a new tab)FairVote -- "Proportional RCV improves diversity in Albany, and voters embrace it," read in full: explains Albany adopted proportional ranked-choice voting (a form of single transferable vote) by ballot measure with 73% voter approval, first used in 2022, replacing a prior "block plurality" system; walks round-by-round through the actual 2022 count for Albany's 2 seats up that cycle (Droop quota just over one-third of the vote), which two candidates campaigning together as the "Albany Forward" slate -- John Miki and Robin López -- won, with a third slate member, former councilmember Nick Pilch, eliminated in round 2; and states the council's other 3 seats were up in 2024, so 2026 returns to a 2-seat cycle.
  • eastbayinsiders.substack.com (opens in a new tab)Steven Tavares's East Bay Insiders Newsletter (an independent East Bay accountability-journalism Substack) -- "Mad Dash to November: Alameda County's November Election Season Is Already Underway," read in full: an early (Feb. 2026) tracker naming Albany's "City Council (Choose 2) (Ranked Choice Voting)" seats up this cycle as held by incumbents Robin López and John Anthony Miki, before the July-Aug. 2026 filing period -- corroborating that López's and Miki's were the two seats up, independent of the county's own later certified roster, which shows Miki ultimately did not file.
  • eastbayinsiders.substack.com (opens in a new tab)Steven Tavares's East Bay Insiders Newsletter -- "Youth Voting Stalls in Albany as Registrar Goes Silent," read in full: reports Albany Mayor Peggy McQuaid's letter to Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas stating the county Registrar of Voters has been unresponsive on implementing Measure V (passed Nov. 2024, 73%+), which extends voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds for both school-board AND City Council races -- unlike Berkeley's and Oakland's youth-voting measures, which cover school board only; independently confirms McQuaid was still Mayor and Preston Jordan still a councilmember as of this July 17, 2026 date, and names Albany's Nov. 2026 City Council race alongside its Unified School District, Fremont Council, and Dublin races in a ballot-roundup list.
  • richmondside.org (opens in a new tab)Richmondside -- "Albany's first Latino mayor is from Richmond," read in full: profiles Robin López's Dec. 9, 2024 installation as Albany's first mayor of Latino and Indigenous ancestry (the council selects the Mayor from among its own members for one-year terms); his 2022 election to Council and 2023 term as Vice Mayor; his path from De Anza High School (Richmond) through Contra Costa College to a BA in Civil Engineering from San Francisco State (2015), an MA from San Jose State, and current work as a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley; and that he lives in Albany's University Village with his wife and two children.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)City of Albany's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (agency code ALB, confirmed via NetFile's own public agency directory), queried directly via its own QuickNameSearch and filings/byCandidate JSON API for all five 2026 candidates. Jon Destin's committee ("Friends of Jon Destin for Albany City Council 2026") has an FPPC Form 460 on file, downloaded directly via the portal's own CampaignDocuments/download endpoint and read for its real numbers: $2,000 in monetary contributions and $473.45 in expenditures for the Jan. 1-June 30, 2026 period, ending with $1,526.55 cash on hand. Katherine Enos and Chris McDaniels have each filed only an FPPC Form 470 (a short-form statement for candidates who do not anticipate raising or spending more than $2,000), so neither has an itemized dollar figure to report. The search also surfaces committee names showing Robin López is running jointly with Aaron Tiedemann as "Albany Forward, Lopez and Tiedemann for Council 2026" (a Form 410 and Form 501s are on file for that committee, but no Form 460 or 470 yet); that Tiedemann ran unsuccessfully for Council twice before, jointly with Preston Jordan, in 2020 and 2024; and that Tiedemann and Jordan jointly controlled two prior Albany ballot-measure committees, "Voter Choice Albany, Yes on Measure BB" and "Yes on 2024 Measure V."
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Albany, California article -- 2020 census population (20,271), cited only for general context.

Last updated September 1, 2026.