Skip to main content

City of Fortuna · Statewide General Election

Fortuna City Council (Short Term)

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 Fortuna's five at-large City Council seats, elected under the same council-manager government as the city's regular 3-seat race, but on a shorter clock: this seat was vacant and filled by council appointment in March 2025, so this election is for a 2-year term rather than the usual 4, after which the seat rejoins the normal cycle.

Only one candidate qualified for this seat: appointed incumbent Carlos Diaz, who joined the City Council in March 2025 and now runs unopposed for a fresh 2-year term. Your vote here does not change the outcome.

This is one of Fortuna's five at-large City Council seats, elected under the same council-manager government as the city's regular 3-seat race (see that contest for the full structural detail), but on a shorter clock: the seat was vacant when the City Council appointed Diaz to fill it in March 2025, and this election fills it for a 2-year term rather than the usual 4. Humboldt County's own pre-filing 'Candidate Openings' list, published before the vacancy was declared, doesn't list this seat at all -- only the city's own post-filing materials confirm it as a 2-year-term race.

With no opponent, the useful question is whether anything unusual explains the empty field rather than who to choose. Nothing does: Humboldt County's own certified 'Qualified Candidate List' lists Diaz in the same format used for every genuinely contested candidate elsewhere in the same document, and Fortuna's City Council took no action to cancel the election and appoint him under Elections Code Section 10229 -- no such item appears on any council meeting agenda checked this pass (July 20, Aug. 3 regular, Aug. 3 special, or Aug. 17, 2026, the council's first regular meeting after the county's Aug. 12 extended filing deadline). This is a genuine on-ballot, uncontested race, not an appointment in lieu of an election.

Carlos Diaz

Carlos Diaz was appointed to the Fortuna City Council on a unanimous 4-0 vote at a March 10, 2025 special meeting, after the Council interviewed applicants to fill a vacant seat; neither the meeting agenda nor its minutes state why the seat was vacant, and nothing further was found. He now runs unopposed for a full 2-year term. Unlike his three counterparts in Fortuna's other November race, he filed no candidate statement, and this dataset found no independently verifiable occupation, biography, or campaign material for him beyond his City Council role -- including his City Council email address, no personal website or social media was located this pass. What's here is limited to what the city's own official records confirm: that he holds the seat, was appointed to it by a unanimous council vote, and is the only person who filed to keep it.

Strengths

Already more than a year of Council experience by the time of this election, having served since his March 2025 appointment.

Trade-offs

No stated platform or priorities for this term were found anywhere this dataset looked -- no candidate statement, no campaign site, no press coverage.

Keep in mind

This dataset could not confirm why his seat became vacant in the first place; the appointment record itself is silent on that point, and no other source filled the gap.

Source review: Strong (87/100) · 8 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • humboldtgov.org (opens in a new tab)Humboldt County Office of Elections -- "Qualified Candidate List - City Contests": the certified, signature-qualified roster naming Mike Johnson (Incumbent), Abe Stevens (Appointed Incumbent), and Tina Christensen (Realtor) for Fortuna's regular 3-seat race, and Carlos Diaz (Appointed Incumbent) alone for the separate 2-year short-term seat.
  • humboldtgov.org (opens in a new tab)Humboldt County Office of Elections -- "2026 [General Election] Candidate Openings" (7-page pre-filing PDF): lists only "Fortuna - City Council, 3 Seats, 4-Year, 2027-2031" for Fortuna -- no short-term seat appears, evidence that opening was declared after this list was published.
  • friendlyfortuna.com (opens in a new tab)City of Fortuna -- its own "Voter & Election Information" page: states the Nov. 3, 2026 election carries "Three (3) Seats -- Four (4) Years Term" and "One (1) Seat -- Two (2) Years Term," names all four candidates by term, and links filed Candidate Statement PDFs for Christensen, Johnson, and Stevens -- none for Diaz.
  • friendlyfortuna.com (opens in a new tab)City of Fortuna -- its own City Council page: "The City Council consists of five members, elected from the City at large, who serve four-year terms. Bi-annually, the City Council appoints a Mayor and a Mayor Pro Tem from its own membership to serve a two-year term." Lists the current five members -- Mayor Mike Johnson, Mayor Pro Tem Tami Trent, and Council Members Kyle Conley, Abe Stevens, and Carlos Diaz.
  • towncloud.io (opens in a new tab)City of Fortuna -- City Council Special Meeting agenda and minutes, March 10, 2025: sole business item "Interviews and Appointment of Successor to Vacant City Council Seat"; Carlos Diaz was appointed on a unanimous 4-0 vote. Neither the agenda nor the minutes state why the seat was vacant.
  • towncloud.io (opens in a new tab)City of Fortuna -- City Council Regular Meeting agenda, Aug. 17, 2026 (the first regular meeting after the county's Aug. 12 extended candidate-filing deadline): a 13-item agenda with no election-cancellation, canvass, or Elections Code Section 10229 appointment item of any kind. The city's July 20, Aug. 3 regular, and Aug. 3 special meetings in the same window were also checked and carry no such item.
  • friendlyfortuna.com (opens in a new tab)City of Fortuna -- its own City Clerk department page: names the City Clerk as the filing officer for campaign and conflict-of-interest disclosure statements under the Political Reform Act; links no online index, NetFile portal, or other public repository of actual filings.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result campaign-finance check: California's statewide Cal-Access campaign-finance filer search, plus this dataset's own previously downloaded CalAccess/FPPC data files, checked directly for "Fortuna" and each of the four candidates' surnames -- no hits tied to Fortuna in any file.

Last updated September 2, 2026.