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City of Fullerton · Statewide General Election

Fullerton City Council, District 5

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 holds your district's seat on Fullerton's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Fullerton is a general-law city with no separately, citywide-elected Mayor -- the council elects a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem from among its own members each year. Not all five council districts are elected the same year; only Districts 3 and 5 are up in 2026. A 4-year term.

Three candidates -- Oscar Valadez, David Fischbein, and Jozef Maldonado -- are running for Fullerton City Council District 5's open seat. Incumbent Ahmad Zahra did not file for re-election. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff.

This person holds District 5's seat on Fullerton's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Fullerton is a general-law city with no separately, citywide-elected Mayor -- the council elects a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem from among its own members each year. Not all five council districts are elected the same year; only Districts 3 and 5 are up in 2026. A 4-year term.

This is Fullerton's only open council seat in 2026 -- the other race, District 3, has an incumbent on the ballot. Beyond each candidate's own filed occupation, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source could be found for any of the three despite a real, per-candidate search effort -- the city's own site is bot-gated against direct fetch, Ballotpedia and Voice of OC returned no usable content for this race, OC Register was unreachable, and this session's WebSearch budget was already exhausted before any query-based search for this city could run. A guessed Wikipedia page for outgoing incumbent Ahmad Zahra also 404'd, so no independent account of why he didn't file for re-election could be confirmed. Documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation.

Oscar Valadez

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Fullerton Commissioner/Businessowner," indicating current service on one of the city's boards or commissions. No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source confirming which commission or describing his business background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.

Strengths

His filed designation indicates current city-commission service, suggesting some existing familiarity with Fullerton's governance and processes.

Trade-offs

No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed designation.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

David Fischbein

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Quality Assurance Inspector." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.

Strengths

A quality-assurance background suggests attention to process and standards that could carry over to municipal oversight work.

Trade-offs

No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed occupation.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

Jozef Maldonado

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Chemist." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.

Strengths

A scientific/technical background is a different professional lens than the other two candidates in this race.

Trade-offs

No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed occupation.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

Source review: Strong (84/100) · 2 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with a narrow source base.

  • ocvote.gov (opens in a new tab)OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Fullerton section (pages 92-94 of 188): confirms City Council District 3 (2 qualified candidates) and District 5 (3) as the city's two November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Fullerton, California article, government section: confirms Fullerton is a general-law, council-manager city with a 5-member, non-partisan City Council on staggered 4-year terms and no directly elected Mayor -- the council elects a chair who serves as Mayor (currently Fred Jung, with Nick Dunlap as Mayor Pro Tem) -- and that the city moved from at-large to five-district council elections after voters approved Measure II in 2016; also confirms Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles as sitting councilmembers, corroborating the county document's incumbency flags for Districts 5 and 3

Last updated August 31, 2026.