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City of Corning · Statewide General Election

Corning 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 two at-large seats up this cycle on Corning's 5-member City Council (Mayor plus 4 Council members): city ordinances, the budget, and land use, for a 4-year term, within a council-manager government where an appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. Corning (2020 Census population 8,244) is a Tehama County city whose Mayor is separately, directly elected to an overlapping 2-year term -- not a seat on this ballot.

Two of Corning's five City Council seats are up this cycle, and exactly two candidates qualified for them: incumbent David L. Demo and newcomer Stefano "Steve" Miraglia. Tehama County's own certified candidate list marks this contest "On Ballot: Yes" -- both names go to the printed ballot and, absent a late disqualification, both are effectively elected, the same as an unopposed race would be, just for two seats at once rather than one.

This person would hold one of two at-large seats up this cycle on Corning's 5-member City Council (Mayor plus 4 Council members): city ordinances, the budget, and land use, for a 4-year term, within a council-manager government where City Manager Brant Mesker runs day-to-day operations. Corning (2020 Census population 8,244) is a Tehama County city whose Mayor is separately, directly elected to an overlapping 2-year term -- not a seat on this ballot.

The two seats up this year aren't the two Council members elected most recently: Tehama County's own November 2024 results show Jose "Chuy" Valerio and Michele "Shelly" Hargens won Corning's two Council seats that cycle (terms running to 2028, not up this year). Of the city's other two Council members, David L. Demo -- currently Vice Mayor, per the city's own roster -- filed for reelection with the ballot designation "Incumbent," while Lisa Lomeli did not file for reelection at all, leaving her seat open to newcomer Miraglia.

Tehama County's own pre-filing "Offices on Ballot" notice and post-filing qualified candidate list both mark this a 4-year-term, 2-seat contest with no Section 10229 cancellation notation -- the field is exactly filled (2 candidates, 2 seats), which under state law would have let the city appoint both without an election, but the county's own document instead marks the contest "On Ballot: Yes" and shows it proceeding through the normal candidate-qualification process rather than any appointment resolution.

David L. Demo

David L. Demo is the incumbent Corning Councilmember seeking reelection, currently serving as Vice Mayor per the city's own Council roster. His 2026 ballot designation is simply "Incumbent" rather than an occupation. No further biographical detail, platform statement, or news coverage of his Council tenure or this campaign was found in this pass -- the county's list shows no paid candidate statement on file for him.

Strengths

Sitting Vice Mayor with current Council experience, confirmed by the city's own official roster.

Trade-offs

No independent record of his platform, priorities, or specific votes as a Councilmember was found in this pass -- his incumbency and Vice Mayor title are confirmed, but little else about him is.

Keep in mind

The absence of coverage reflects a small city's thin local-news environment, not anything unusual about this candidate -- his opponent has an equally bare public record.

Stefano "Steve" Miraglia

Stefano "Steve" Miraglia is a non-incumbent candidate for Corning City Council, running for the seat Lisa Lomeli left open by not seeking reelection. His county filing carries no ballot designation. He maintains a live 2026 campaign website (miraglia-ca.com) with the tagline "Empowering Corning's Future," but the site's own content beyond that slogan and a contact form was, on direct review, empty of any stated biography, occupation, or platform. No further background or news coverage of his candidacy was found in this pass.

Strengths

A live, active campaign website distinct from the bare-minimum county filing, suggesting a genuinely organized run.

Trade-offs

No occupation, platform, or civic background was found for him anywhere, including his own campaign site -- the thinnest public record in this race.

Keep in mind

Running for an open seat rather than against an incumbent is a meaningfully different position than it might first appear -- he isn't challenging Demo's seat, but competing to fill Lomeli's vacancy alongside him.

Candidate background for this contest is genuinely thin for both names, not lopsided: beyond confirmed incumbency status and Demo's Vice Mayor title, neither candidate has an independently verifiable platform or civic record locatable in this pass. Corning (population about 8,200) has no locatable dedicated local newspaper covering this specific race; the regional outlets checked directly (Red Bluff Daily News, KRCR/Action News Now) returned nothing Corning-election-specific.

No 2026 campaign-finance filings were found for either candidate. Tehama County does not run a NetFile or equivalent local campaign-finance portal -- its own elections page links out only to the state FPPC site -- and the state's Cal-Access filer-search system could not be queried as a plain fetchable page in this pass. A documented access gap, not a claim about either candidate's actual finances; small local races below the state's reporting threshold commonly have no filing at all.

Source review: Strong (81/100) · 8 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: Stefano "Steve" Miraglia -- 2026 Corning City Council campaign website may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • tehama.gov (opens in a new tab)Tehama County Elections -- "Offices on Ballot for November 3, 2026" (pre-filing notice): names City of Corning Mayor (1 seat) and Member of City Council (2 seats) as the two Corning offices up this cycle. Its "4 years" term-of-office figure for the Mayor row is contradicted by Tehama County's own 2024 election results (see corning-tehamacounty-sov2024-2026) and treated here as a table-transcription error for that one row.
  • tehama.gov (opens in a new tab)Tehama County Elections -- "Qualified List of Candidates," November 3, 2026 General Election (posted Aug. 10, 2026): names all four qualified Corning candidates -- Jose "Chuy" Valerio (Realtor) and Robert Snow (Plant Supervisor) for Mayor; Stefano "Steve" Miraglia (no ballot designation) and David L. Demo (Incumbent) for the two Council seats -- and explicitly marks both contests "On Ballot: Yes," ruling out a Section 10229 cancellation for either.
  • corning.org (opens in a new tab)City of Corning -- City Council (current membership roster): names the sitting five-member Council -- Mayor Robert Snow, Vice Mayor Dave Demo, and Members Jose "Chuy" Valerio, Shelly Hargens, and Lisa Lomeli -- and states in its own words, "The registered voters elect the Mayor every two years, and the City Council members are elected to four year terms that overlap with the Mayor's term," resolving the county document's term-length discrepancy for the Mayor's seat.
  • corning.org (opens in a new tab)City of Corning -- Administration: confirms the council-manager form of government and names City Manager Brant Mesker as the city's chief executive and administrative head.
  • corning.org (opens in a new tab)City of Corning -- "Friday Notes" weekly newsletter, Aug. 7, 2026 edition: the City Clerk's own report that "there were four completed packets turned in before the deadline -- two applicants were for the Mayor position and the other two were for the Councilmember position," with no election-cancellation language.
  • tehama.gov (opens in a new tab)Tehama County Elections -- Statement of Votes Cast by District, November 5, 2024 Consolidated General Election (workbook): shows "1 CITY OF CORNING MAYOR" was itself on the Nov. 2024 ballot, won unopposed by Robert E. Snow (1,642 votes) -- the same Robert Snow on the 2026 Mayor ballot two years later, establishing a 2-year Mayoral term -- and shows Jose "Chuy" Valerio and Michele "Shelly" Hargens won Corning's two Council seats that cycle (terms to 2028), confirming neither is up for Council reelection in 2026.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Corning, California": used narrowly for the 2020 Census population (8,244).
  • miraglia-ca.com (opens in a new tab)Stefano "Steve" Miraglia's own live 2026 campaign website: carries the tagline "Empowering Corning's Future" and a contact form, but no biography, occupation, or platform text -- a documented, checked negative result for candidate depth.

Last updated September 2, 2026.