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City of Dinuba · Statewide General Election

Dinuba City Council, District 3

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 district-elected seats on Dinuba's City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this roughly 24,600-resident Tulare County city (2020 Census), long known for its raisin and packing-house agricultural economy. A 4-year term, decided by whoever gets the most votes -- no runoff. Dinuba is a Charter City; the Council selects one of its own members to serve as Mayor and another as Vice Mayor, rather than voters electing either office directly, and terms are staggered so Districts 2, 3, and 4 (this ballot's three seats) elect together, with Districts 1 and 5 following four years later.

Only one candidate qualified for this seat. Incumbent Vice Mayor Benjamin "Benny" Prado appears unopposed, so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome.

This person would hold one of five district-elected seats on Dinuba's City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this roughly 24,600-resident Tulare County city, long known for its raisin and packing-house agricultural economy. A 4-year term, decided by whoever gets the most votes -- no runoff. Dinuba is a Charter City; the Council selects one of its own members to serve as Mayor and another as Vice Mayor, rather than voters electing either office directly, and terms are staggered so Districts 2, 3, and 4 (this ballot's three seats) elect together, with Districts 1 and 5 following four years later.

With no opponent, the useful question is not who to choose but who he is. Prado currently serves as Vice Mayor -- selected for that role by his fellow Councilmembers, on top of representing District 3 -- making him the senior officer among Dinuba's five elected Councilmembers. His filed ballot designation is simply "Incumbent," and no independent biography, campaign site, or local news coverage was found for him this pass.

Benjamin "Benny" Prado

Prado is the sitting District 3 Councilmember and Dinuba's current Vice Mayor, chosen for that post by the Council itself. Beyond his Council and Vice Mayor service and his filed "Incumbent" designation, this dataset found no independent biography, occupation, platform statement, or campaign site for him -- the city's own bio page for him lists only his title and term-expiration date, not a personal statement, and a dedicated search turned up no local news coverage of him or this race.

Strengths

Sitting-incumbent experience, plus the added standing of being the Council's own choice for Vice Mayor.

Trade-offs

No confirmed occupation, platform, or public statement beyond his official roles -- this dataset has nothing to independently test his record against.

Keep in mind

He is unopposed, so this race turns entirely on whether voters want to keep the incumbent rather than on a contest between two visions for the district.

Source review: Strong (88/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • tc-web.widen.net (opens in a new tab)Tulare County Elections -- the same official "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (CFMR001) used above, re-extracted in full this pass to reach its "Non-Partisan City" section: lists exactly three City of Dinuba contests, all flagged ON BALLOT / Vote For 1, each with one qualified candidate -- Ward 2 (incumbent Maribel Reynosa), Ward 3 (incumbent Benjamin "Benny" Prado), and Ward 4 (Laura Rico, "Retired Educator/author"; sitting incumbent Kuldip Thusu did not appear among its qualified candidates, and the contest is flagged as having gone into a filing extension)
  • dinuba.org (opens in a new tab)City of Dinuba -- official City Council page: names all five sitting district Councilmembers and their titles (Rachel Nerio-Guerrero, Mayor, District 1; Benjamin Prado, Vice Mayor, District 3; Kuldip Thusu, Councilmember, District 4; Maribel Reynosa, Councilmember, District 2; Linda Launer, Councilmember, District 5), an exact name match against the county's Ward 2/3/4 filings
  • dinuba.org (opens in a new tab)City of Dinuba -- official Elections page: confirms Dinuba is a Charter City, that the Tulare County Registrar of Voters administers city elections' mechanics, and that FPPC/campaign- finance filing compliance runs through the City Clerk's office -- no online disclosure portal (NetFile or otherwise) is named or linked anywhere on the site
  • dinuba.org (opens in a new tab)City of Dinuba Charter (Article II) -- establishes five Council districts electing one member each by plurality (no runoff), 4-year terms staggered so Districts 2, 3, and 4 elect together and Districts 1 and 5 follow four years later, and that the Mayor and Vice Mayor are selected by the Council from among its own members and serve at the Council's pleasure rather than being separately elected; contains no appointment-in-lieu-of-election provision for an unopposed seat
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Dinuba, California article -- confirms the city's 2020 Census population (24,563) and its raisin/packing-house agricultural economy, historically nicknamed "Raisin City"
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)This dataset's own documented record of a dedicated, unsuccessful attempt to retrieve campaign-finance filings for all three Dinuba City Council candidates: California's Cal-Access filer search (cal-access.sos.ca.gov) returned only an empty, unrendered results shell for every query attempted this session ("Reynosa," "Prado," "Rico"), and the city's own Elections page names no online disclosure portal at all. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these three candidates, not any of their actual finances.
  • dinuba.org (opens in a new tab)City of Dinuba -- Benjamin Prado's official Councilmember bio page: title "Vice Mayor - District 3," term expires November 2026, confirming District/Ward 3 is one of the three seats up this cycle

Last updated September 1, 2026.