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City of Guadalupe · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Guadalupe

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 is Guadalupe's directly elected Mayor -- one seat on a five-member City Council (the Mayor plus four Council Members, all elected at large citywide; Guadalupe has no council districts) that sets the budget, land use, and city ordinances for this Santa Barbara County city of 8,057 residents (2020 Census). The Mayor serves a two-year term.

Two candidates are running for Mayor of Guadalupe: incumbent Ariston D. Julian and City Councilmember Christina Hernandez. Vote for one -- no primary.

Guadalupe's Mayor is directly elected citywide to a two-year term, separate from the city's four Council seats and not chosen by the Council itself. The winner sits on a five-member City Council -- the Mayor plus four Council Members, all elected at large; Guadalupe has no council districts -- that sets the budget, land use, and city ordinances for this Santa Barbara County city of 8,057 residents (2020 Census), just north of the Santa Maria Valley.

Julian is a longtime officeholder seeking another term after running essentially unopposed in 2022 (94.5% of the vote); Hernandez, the sitting Mayor Pro Tem, is not seeking re-election to her own Council seat and is instead running to unseat him directly.

Ariston D. Julian

Ariston D. Julian is the incumbent Mayor, currently serving his third two-year term. Born at Sisters Hospital in Santa Maria and raised in Guadalupe, he attended Guadalupe schools, Righetti High School, and Hancock Junior College before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force, serving four years at Castle Air Force Base and receiving an honorable discharge as staff sergeant in 1972. He then earned a master's degree in social work, with a focus on community development, health management, and community education, from Fresno State in 1975. He served four years on the city's Recreation Commission before his first election to the City Council in 1980, and has held a Council or Mayor seat for a combined 18 years since, including two years as mayor pro tem. Professionally, he is retired after 21 years as Executive Director of Guadalupe Community Health Centers Inc. and 18 years as Facility Director with Community Health Centers of the Central Coast, and has also worked as a health-education outreach coordinator and a farm-worker training counselor. He describes his goal in office as ensuring all residents are served well by local officials and staff.

Strengths

A multi-decade record in Guadalupe civic life -- 18 years on the Council across various terms plus his current mayoralty, and a specific career history in local community health administration.

Trade-offs

His city-published biography is self-authored; this pass found no independent local-news profile of his current term or a stated 2026 platform beyond his standing record.

Keep in mind

As the incumbent, a vote for him is largely a referendum on 18-plus years of Guadalupe civic involvement rather than a departure to something new.

Christina Hernandez

Christina Hernandez is the sitting Mayor Pro Tem and a City Councilmember, running for Mayor rather than seeking re-election to her own Council seat. Her own city-published biography describes her as born in the Santa Maria Valley and a lifelong Guadalupe resident, whose interest in social equity grew from a decade of work with nonprofit organizations serving the area. She has chaired the Guadalupe Lions Club and the Guadalupe Comite for the past five years, and describes hiking the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes as a personal passion. The city clerk's own candidate list prints her ballot designation as "District Representative"; this dataset could not independently confirm what body that designation refers to, since her city-published biography describes her only in her Mayor Pro Tem and civic-volunteer capacities.

Strengths

Current service as Mayor Pro Tem on the sitting Council, plus a decade of documented nonprofit and civic leadership in Guadalupe (the Lions Club, the Guadalupe Comite).

Trade-offs

Her city-published biography is self-authored and shorter than Julian's; this pass found no independent news coverage of her council record or a stated 2026 platform.

Keep in mind

A vote for her moves a sitting Councilmember up to Mayor rather than keeping the incumbent -- her own Council seat is not on this ballot.

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

  • cityofguadalupe.org (opens in a new tab)City of Guadalupe City Clerk -- "November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election" page: states the three offices up (Mayor -- 2-year term; Council Member 1 and Council Member 2 -- 4-year terms; City Treasurer -- 4-year term), the candidate filing period (July 13 - August 7, 2026), and its own "2026 QUALIFIED CANDIDATES" table naming all five candidates by office, printed ballot designation, and whether each filed a candidate statement -- Christina Hernandez (Mayor, "District Representative"), Ariston D. Julian (Mayor, none), Randy L. Altergott (Council Member, none), Robert Diaz (Council Member, none, statement filed), Charlene Estabillo (Treasurer, none)
  • cityofguadalupe.org (opens in a new tab)City of Guadalupe -- "Elected Officials" page: states plainly the Council is a Mayor plus four Council Members, "each City Council member represents the City at large, there are no districts," and that the Mayor serves a two-year term and Council Members a four-year term on a staggered, three-seats-every-two-years cycle; names the sitting Council with terms -- Ariston Julian (Mayor, 2024-2026), Christina Hernandez (Mayor Pro Tem, 2022-2026), Amelia M. Villegas (Councilmember, 2024-2028), Whitney Furness (Councilmember, 2024-2028), Eugene Costa Jr. (Councilmember, 2022-2026) -- and carries each sitting official's own self-authored biography, including Julian's USAF service, Fresno State master's degree, and career at Guadalupe Community Health Centers Inc., and Hernandez's nonprofit work and Guadalupe Lions Club/Comite chair roles
  • santamariatimes.com (opens in a new tab)Santa Maria Times -- "Familiar faces, old rivalries mark SB North County's November ballot" (Aug. 28, 2026 update; citing the county's own qualified-candidate lists after the Aug. 7 filing deadline): "Longtime Guadalupe Mayor Ariston D. Julian, who ran essentially unopposed in 2022 and received 94.5% of the vote, faces City Councilmember Christina Hernandez. Robert Diaz and Randy L. Altergott, unopposed, are the only candidates for the two City Council seats. The treasurer's race also is uncontested, with Charlene Estabillo as the only qualified candidate. She was appointed to the seat after longtime Treasurer Anna Marie Santillan-Michaud died on June 3, 2025... and is now seeking a full term unopposed"
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Guadalupe, California": used narrowly for the 2020 Census population (8,057) and independent corroboration that Ariston Julian is the sitting Mayor -- does not cover the 2026 election
  • santamariatimes.com (opens in a new tab)Santa Maria Times -- "Dozens of seats on the line as November election filing opens across northern SB County" (July 15, 2026): states "Three seats up for election belong to Mayor Ariston Julian, Mayor Pro Tem Christina Hernandez, and Councilmember Eugene Costa Jr. All seats represent the city at large, as Guadalupe does not use voting districts" -- independently confirming the city clerk's own structure and incumbency account before candidate filing closed
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- a direct fetch of the filer-search page returned an Incapsula bot-challenge page, and this session's separate web-fetch tool returned a blank result page, for each of the five candidates' names queried. Cal-Access's own scope covers only state-level campaign committees in any case, not local city races. Documents an inability to reach a working state financial-disclosure search for any of the five candidates, not a claim about any candidate's actual finances
  • cityofguadalupe.org (opens in a new tab)City of Guadalupe -- "Documents Archive" page, searched in full across every listed category (Bid Packages, Council Agendas, Council Minutes, Employment, Miscellaneous Documents, Oversight Board Agendas, Recreation Commission Agendas, Water Department Documents): no "Campaign Statements" category exists and no filed FPPC disclosure for any of the five 2026 candidates is posted online, unlike Buellton's city site. Documents an absence of a reachable local financial-disclosure filing for any candidate in this shard, not a claim about any candidate's actual finances

Last updated September 1, 2026.