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City of Fremont · Statewide General Election

Fremont City Council, District 4

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

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 six district seats on the Fremont City Council -- Alameda County's largest city, with about 230,000 residents -- alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. A 4-year term, decided by whichever candidate gets the most votes -- no ranked-choice voting is documented for Fremont.

An open seat: sitting Councilmember Yang Shao is not running for reelection, and four candidates are competing for Fremont's District 4 seat.

This person would hold one of six district seats on the Fremont City Council -- Alameda County's largest city, with about 230,000 residents -- alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. A 4-year term, decided by whichever candidate gets the most votes; no ranked-choice voting is documented for Fremont.

Yang Shao, District 4's sitting councilmember, filed no 2026 campaign committee of his own and is not among the four qualified candidates. Fremont's own NetFile portal shows he instead made a personal $850 contribution, on May 31, 2026, to one of the four candidates, small-business owner Ying-Min Li -- a real, filed campaign-finance record, not a formal endorsement.

Aziz Akbari

Aziz Akbari's ballot designation is Director, Alameda County Water District -- an elected seat on that separate special district's own governing board, distinct from the Fremont City Council. His campaign-finance filing lists his occupation the same way. His committee, Aziz Akbari for Fremont City Council D4 2026, reported his contributions include a $153 self-contribution.

Strengths

Current elected experience on a public water district's governing board, a different kind of public-agency service than the other three D4 candidates.

Trade-offs

The smallest cash-in-hand of the four candidates by his most recent filing, with $1,107 in accrued unpaid bills against just $288 raised.

Keep in mind

A water district board seat is a different agency with a narrower mandate than a city council seat -- relevant public-service experience, not a direct preview of council work.

Ying-Min Li

Ying-Min Li's ballot designation is Small Business Owner; her campaign-finance filings identify her as the owner of GSJ Well Corp. Her committee's H1 2026 filing runs to 38 pages and shows dozens of itemized contributions from individuals across the Bay Area and beyond -- including several members of her extended family under the surname Li -- plus $80,000 in loans from Li to her own campaign. Her donor list also includes an $850 contribution from Yang Shao, the sitting District 4 councilmember whose seat she is running for.

Strengths

By far the best-resourced 2026 Fremont council campaign, with a broad donor base plus her own loans, and a direct contribution from the outgoing district councilmember.

Trade-offs

Most of her campaign's total ($80,000 of $130,060.88) is loans from Li herself, not outside contributions -- her own financial commitment, not necessarily broad support.

Keep in mind

No independent news coverage or biography of Li was found in this pass beyond her own campaign-finance filings and ballot designation; her occupation and business are reported here only as she disclosed them.

Anurag Mishra

Anurag Mishra's ballot designation is Technical Leader. No campaign committee was located for him at all on Fremont's NetFile portal under that name, and no independent biography or news coverage was found beyond the county's own candidate listing.

Strengths

A fourth choice for voters in a district with no incumbent running, from a candidate whose ballot designation points to a technology-sector background.

Trade-offs

No located campaign committee means no fundraising signal at all to compare against the other three D4 candidates.

Keep in mind

This dataset found nothing about his candidacy beyond the bare ballot designation and filing status -- a documented gap, not a judgment about his campaign.

Manisha Pathak

Manisha Pathak's ballot designation is Educator/Nonprofit Executive. Her committee, Pathak for Fremont City Council District 4 2026, reported the second-largest fundraising total in the race, drawing itemized contributions from a broad range of Bay Area donors -- engineers, a product manager, an architect, a professor, and a realtor among them -- and spending on campaign literature, printing, and a paid get-out-the-vote/polling vendor.

Strengths

The second-strongest fundraising total in the district, drawn from a wide range of donors' professions rather than a narrow base.

Trade-offs

No prior public-office or city-commission service was found for her in this pass, unlike Akbari's water-district board seat.

Keep in mind

"Educator/Nonprofit Executive" is her filed ballot designation; this dataset found no independent reporting detailing which school, nonprofit, or role that describes.

Source review: Strong (86/100) · 5 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • alamedacountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- official Candidate List system (electionId 260, "General Election - 11/03/2026 (Official)"), queried directly via its own JSON API (GET /rov_app/racelist/260/600) for the City category: names all three Fremont races (raceIds 115-117) -- For Member Of City Council #2/#3/#4, Fremont -- alongside the other 43 Alameda County city races countywide, and confirms Fremont has no mayoral race this cycle.
  • alamedacountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- official Candidate List system, queried directly via its own POST-based HTML API (POST /rov_app/candidatelist/) for all three Fremont races, each flagged "Vote For: 1" and "On Ballot": For Member Of City Council #2 -- Desrie Campbell ("Councilmember/Healthcare Director") and Keith Parker ("Marketing Director"); #3 -- Kathy Kimberlin ("County Field Director") and Vipin Sharma ("Senior Engineering Manager"); #4 -- Aziz Akbari ("Director, Alameda County Water District"), Ying Min Li ("Small Business Owner"), Anurag Mishra ("Technical Leader"), and Manisha Pathak ("Educator/Nonprofit Executive"). The system's own "Incumbent" detail field reads "N" for every candidate including Campbell and Kimberlin, who Fremont's own city government page confirms are sitting councilmembers -- this dataset does not treat that field as reliable.
  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)City of Fremont -- "Mayor & City Council" page, read via the Internet Archive's July 23, 2026 snapshot after fremont.gov itself returned HTTP 403 to every direct fetch attempted in this pass: names every sitting councilmember by district -- Teresa Keng (District 1), Desrie Campbell (District 2), Kathy Kimberlin (District 3), Yang Shao (District 4), Vice Mayor Yajing Zhang (District 5), and Raymond Liu (District 6) -- plus Mayor Raj Salwan, sworn in December 2024. Independently confirms Campbell and Kimberlin as genuine incumbents in their Nov. 2026 races and that Yang Shao, not a candidate for reelection, is the outgoing District 4 officeholder.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)City of Fremont's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (agency code FRE), queried directly via its own QuickNameSearch and filings/byFiler|byCandidate JSON API for every 2026 city council candidate, with each located candidate's actual H1 2026 FPPC Form 460 (or, where none existed, the most recent filing on record) downloaded directly via the portal's own CampaignDocuments/download endpoint and read for its real reported totals. Desrie Campbell (D2) $800 raised / $40 spent; Keith Parker (D2) no 2026 committee, only a 2022 one; Kathy Kimberlin (D3) $200 raised / $1,966.08 spent, including a $5,000 loan from her husband; Vipin Sharma (D3) only a Form 501 on file, no Form 460; Aziz Akbari (D4) $288 raised / $10.09 spent plus $1,107 in accrued unpaid bills; Ying-Min Li (D4) $50,060.88 in monetary contributions plus $80,000 in loans from Li herself / $13,932.33 spent, including an $850 contribution from sitting District 4 Councilmember Yang Shao; Manisha Pathak (D4) $4,091 raised / $1,395.06 spent; Anurag Mishra (D4) no campaign committee located.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Fremont, California article -- 2020 census population (230,504), the fourth most populous city in the Bay Area and the largest in Alameda County; also lists the current City Council roster by name, used only as a secondary cross-check against the city's own page.

Last updated September 1, 2026.