# Apple Valley Mayor Compare records and positions simply between Robert Andrew Lucero, David Dencker, or Scott Nassif for Apple Valley Mayor at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person is Apple Valley's directly elected, town-wide Mayor. They preside at Town Council meetings. The Mayor votes as a full member of the five-person council. The council sets town laws, the budget, and land use. This is a High Desert town. The Mayor's term is two years. That is shorter than the Council's four-year terms. The Council fills a separate, rotating Mayor Pro Tem position every December. It picks that person from its own members. Unlike that role, the Mayor is elected directly by voters town-wide. - Jurisdiction: City of Apple Valley - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/apple-valley-mayor - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 7, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 92 out of 100 (Very strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Robert Andrew Lucero** — Artist - **David Dencker** — Construction Safety Coordinator - **Scott Nassif** — Business Owner / Mayor · Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Mayor Scott Nassif, re-elected in 2024, faces two challengers, David Dencker and Robert Andrew Lucero, on the November 3, 2026 ballot. Whichever candidate gets the most votes wins outright -- there is no primary or runoff. This person is Apple Valley's directly elected, town-wide Mayor. They preside at Town Council meetings and vote as a full member of the 5-person council that sets town ordinances, the budget, and land use for this High Desert town. The term is two years, shorter than the Council's 4-year terms. Unlike the separate, rotating Mayor Pro Tem position the Council fills from among its own members every December, Apple Valley's Mayor is elected directly by voters town-wide. Nassif, first elected Mayor and re-elected most recently in November 2024, holds an Aeronautics associate degree from Victor Valley College and is a past board member of the League of California Cities and a Director of the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, per the town's own biography. Dencker and Lucero are both first-time candidates for this office; the county's own candidate filing lists their occupations as Construction Safety Coordinator and Artist respectively, but no independent reporting or campaign material on either could be found in this research pass. ## Scott Nassif Scott Nassif is Apple Valley's incumbent Mayor, re-elected on November 5, 2024 to a 2-year term. They hold an associate in science degree in Aeronautics from Victor Valley College and, per the town's own biography, is a past board member of the League of California Cities, a delegate to the Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority, and a Director of the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority. Their filed ballot designation is "Business Owner / Mayor." **Strengths:** Sitting Mayor with a wide bench of regional-agency roles (CA JPIA director, League of CA Cities past board member) beyond the council seat itself. **Trade-offs:** No independent reporting on their time as Mayor was found in this pass; financial info could not be retrieved for this race (see note below). **Keep in mind:** A 2-year Mayoral term means this office comes up for a fresh decision more often than the town's Council seats -- worth weighing on its own timeline. ## David Dencker David Dencker is a challenger for Apple Valley Mayor. The county's own candidate filing lists their occupation as Construction Safety Coordinator. They hold no town office and have no page on the town's own website; no independent reporting or campaign material about their background or platform was found in this research pass. **Strengths:** None could be documented in this research pass. **Trade-offs:** No biographical or platform info beyond their filed occupation was found anywhere in this pass -- a documented gap, not an oversight. Financial info was likewise unavailable. **Keep in mind:** The county's own filing record shows they did not file a candidate statement for the ballot pamphlet -- an unusually thin public record this late in the race. ## Robert Andrew Lucero Robert Andrew Lucero is a challenger for Apple Valley Mayor. The county's own candidate filing lists their occupation as Artist. They hold no town office and have no page on the town's own website; no independent reporting or campaign material about their background or platform was found in this research pass. **Strengths:** None could be documented in this research pass. **Trade-offs:** No biographical or platform info beyond their filed occupation was found anywhere in this pass -- a documented gap, not an oversight. Financial info was likewise unavailable. **Keep in mind:** An unusually thin public record this late in the race is itself worth noting. ## Sources 1. [San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- statewide "Report_CandidateList.pdf" candidate-filing report linked from the county's own November 3, 2026 candidates page: within the San Bernardino County section, only Area B carries any candidates (Rita Fernandez-Loof, Miki R. Inbody, Kimberly L. Watson); Areas A and D, both confirmed expiring this cycle by the county's own Offices Up for Election document, have no candidates anywhere in the report and will not appear on the November ballot](https://uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov/ROV/Elections/2026/1103/Report_CandidateList.pdf) 2. [San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- "Offices Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": lists County Board of Education Areas A, B, and D (under the School category) as the county's only expiring-term seats this cycle -- no Board of Supervisors, row office, or Superior Court seat appears anywhere in the 11-page document](https://uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov/ROV/Elections/2026/1103/Report_OfficesUpForElection.pdf) 3. [Town of Apple Valley -- "Meet Your Government" page: "Apple Valley has an elected Mayor and four Council districts." "The Mayor serves for two years" and "Council members serve for four years." "Each December, the Council picks one member to be Mayor Pro Tem" -- the separate, rotating position, distinct from the directly elected Mayor. Lists the sitting council: Mayor Scott Nassif, and Council Members Art Bishop, Larry Cusack (Mayor Pro Tem), Curt Emick, and Kari Leon](https://applevalley.org/government/meet-your-government/) 4. [Town of Apple Valley -- Council Member Info page for Mayor Scott Nassif: "Victor Valley College, associate in science degree, Aeronautics"; "Re-elected on November 5, 2024, to a 2-year term"; League of California Cities past board member, Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority delegate, and a Director of the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority](https://applevalley.org/council-member-info/scott-nassif/) 5. [San Bernardino County -- NetFile public campaign-finance portal (aid=SBD), queried directly by name for all seven 2026 Apple Valley candidates: six return no filer at all; the seventh, Ted Bohanon, has a record, but its only filings are an FPPC Form 501 candidate-intention statement and two Form 470 short-form disclosures, all dated 2010-2012 -- nothing from the 2026 cycle](https://public.netfile.com/pub2/?aid=SBD) 6. [Town of Apple Valley's own city-specific NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (agency code TAV, netfile.com/public/TAV), linked directly from the Town's own "Fair Political Practices Commission Reporting/Forms" page (applevalley.org/government/fair-political-practices-commission-reporting-forms) as the venue for "current Committee Filings" -- distinct from San Bernardino County's shared countywide portal (aid=SBD) that an earlier pass in this dataset had queried and found nothing current for any of these seven candidates. Queried directly for all seven 2026 candidates via the TAV portal's own name-search and transaction-search tools. David Dencker, Robert Andrew Lucero, Ted Bohanon, and Matthew Rutledge have no filer of any kind registered with this portal. Scott Nassif's committee (Scott Nassif for Mayor 2026) formed via Form 410 on July 15, 2026 and has since filed two Form 497 late-contribution reports (September 1 and 3, 2026) itemizing five contributions totaling $9,616.18 -- $3,000 from Nassif himself, $1,000 each from Jonathan Hove and Larry Cusack plus a second $3,616.18 from Cusack, and $1,000 from Conco Construction Engineer, Design & Building Inc -- but no semi-annual Form 460 has been filed yet, so no committee-wide contribution/spending total or cash balance is available. Kari Lynn Leon's committee (active since her first run in 2018) filed a semi-annual Form 460 for January-June 2026 on July 25, 2026; itemized transactions for that period include a $500 contribution from the Edison International Civic Action Committee and a $1,000 contribution from Larry Cusack, plus several hundred dollars apiece paid to a cluster of print voter-guide publishers (Cal Voter Newsletter, Election Digest, the Voter Guide, the Senior Advocate, the Budget Watchdog, the COPS Voter Guide) and to a political consultant, Porter Public Strategies; a separate $2,500 late contribution from Yu Mlynarski was reported August 14, 2026, after this filing period had closed. Curt Emick's committee filed a semi-annual Form 460 for January-June 2026 on July 28, 2026; itemized transactions for that period include a $500 contribution from the Edison International Civic Action Committee (rendered "Internationaal" in the filing itself), a $1,000 contribution from Larry Cusack, several smaller individual contributions, roughly $1,536 in consulting fees paid to Porter Public Strategies, and, from a prior filing period (September 2025), a $325 loan from William Emick, whose own filed occupation/employer field reads "Walgreens, councilmember town of Apple Valley" -- a detail taken directly from the filing and not independently verified.](https://netfile.com/public/TAV/campaign) ## The rest of the ballot Apple Valley Mayor is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Apple Valley Mayor — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/apple-valley-mayor (sources last retrieved September 7, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.