# Mayor of Hayward

Compare records and positions simply between Tom Wong or Mark Salinas for Mayor of Hayward at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. Hayward's Mayor is directly elected citywide. They chair the City Council. Hayward is an Alameda County city of about 163,000 people. An appointed City Manager handles day-to-day operations. The term is four years. The seat goes to whoever gets the most votes. Hayward does not use ranked-choice voting.

- Jurisdiction: City of Hayward
- Election: November 3, 2026 California general election
- Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements.
- Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/hayward-mayor
- Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/
- Sources last retrieved: September 1, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 86 out of 100 (Strong), across 10 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Tom Wong** — Businessman
- **Mark Salinas** — Mayor/College Instructor · Incumbent

A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot.

Incumbent Mayor Mark Salinas is seeking a second term against Tom Wong, a private-security-industry businessman making his first run for citywide office.

Hayward's Mayor is directly elected citywide and chairs the City Council in this Alameda County city of about 163,000, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. The term is four years. The seat is decided by plurality vote -- not ranked-choice, unlike Berkeley, San Leandro, or Oakland.

Unlike Hayward's Council seats, the Mayor's office isn't part of this cycle's shift to district elections -- it remains directly elected citywide before and after the transition (see the District 1 and District 6 races for that background).

## Mark Salinas

Mark Salinas first won a Hayward City Council seat in 2010, was reelected in 2016 and 2020, and was elected Mayor in November 2022. He teaches Ethnic Studies and History at Chabot College and serves as Executive Director of The Kids' Breakfast Club. He holds a BA in La Raza Studies (1997) and an MA in Educational Administration and Public Policy Studies (1999), both from San Francisco State. His civic record includes a board seat on the St. Rose Hospital Foundation, founding the Hayward Early Learning Committee, chairing the Friends of Chabot College Foundation, and affiliations with the Hayward Rotary and Latino Business Roundtable.

**Strengths:** 16 years of Hayward elected experience -- six years on Council, four as Mayor -- plus an education career tied to one local institution, Chabot College.

**Trade-offs:** No independent news coverage of his 2026 campaign was found in this pass, beyond his own city bio and campaign-finance filings.

**Keep in mind:** His H1 2026 filing sits under his continuing "...2022"-named committee, not a separate one from the newer-named committee NetFile also returns for him.

## Tom Wong

Tom Wong describes himself as a businessman with roughly 30 years in private security and five years in public-safety roles; his ballot designation is Businessman. He holds an AA in Administration of Justice from Skyline College and says he is pursuing an LLM in international business law through the University of London. His self-published "Hayward First Agenda" runs to seven points: halting further data-center expansion in favor of housing, property-tax relief for seniors, adding police officers and detectives, "Hire Local" policies and zero-interest small-business loans, a direct hiring pipeline for Chabot College graduates, utility-cost caps, and neighborhood revitalization.

**Strengths:** A specific, seven-point published platform -- unusually detailed for a first-time citywide candidate.

**Trade-offs:** No Form 460 is on file for his campaign, only an initial Form 501 -- no fundraising total to compare, and no independent news coverage was found in this pass.

**Keep in mind:** His platform's claims are his own campaign's framing, not independently verified by this dataset.

## Review notes

- Tom Wong's own 2026 campaign site (tomforhaywardmayor2026.com): self-description, attributed in text -- roughly 30 years of private-security experience plus five years in public-safety roles, small-business ownership, education (AA Administration of Justice, Skyline College; pursuing an LLM in international business law, University of London), and his detailed seven-point "Hayward First Agenda" platform (halting data-center expansion in favor of housing, senior property-tax relief, more police officers and detectives, "Hire Local" policies and zero-interest small-business loans, a Chabot College hiring pipeline, utility-cost caps, and neighborhood revitalization). may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

## Sources

1. [Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- own JSON API behind its "Candidate List" web app (electionId 260 = General Election - 11/03/2026, Official): the candidatelist/260 endpoint returns every race category countywide with no County category at all (zero Board of Supervisors/row-office/judicial seats on the Nov. 2026 general), and the racelist/260/600 endpoint names all 46 City-category races countywide, including the exact seven Berkeley races (four Council districts, Auditor, Rent Stabilization Board, School Directors) with their raceIds and vote-for-N seat counts -- confirming Alameda County publishes a unified countywide candidate document, unlike Santa Clara County.](https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rov_app/racelist/260/600)
2. [Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- the same candidatelist app's per-race candidate-detail view (POST to /rov_app/candidatelist/ with electionId=260 and each Berkeley raceId), queried directly for all seven Berkeley races: returns each candidate's exact ballot designation, filing agency, and on-ballot status -- the same roster as the City Clerk's own Notice of Candidates, independently confirming all 23 names and designations.](https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rov_app/candidatelist/)
3. [City of Hayward -- "Elections" page: confirms a General Municipal Election on Nov. 3, 2026 for one Mayor seat and two Council seats (District 1 and District 6), states the July 13-Aug. 7, 2026 nomination period (Aug. 12 if an incumbent does not file), and links to the Candidate Information page and the city's NetFile public campaign-finance portal (aid=HWD).](https://www.hayward-ca.gov/your-government/elections)
4. [City of Hayward -- "Candidate Information" elections page: independently names all five qualified Nov. 2026 candidates by race -- Mark Salinas and Tom Wong for Mayor; George Syrop and Brian Schott for Council District 1; Julie Roche for Council District 6 -- with each candidate's own campaign website (where filed) and NetFile campaign-finance filer link, matching the county's own candidate roster name-for-name.](https://www.hayward-ca.gov/your-government/elections/candidate-information)
5. [City of Hayward -- official "City Council" page: names Mayor Mark Salinas and the six sitting at-large councilmembers (Mayor Pro Tempore George Syrop, Angela Andrews, Ray Bonilla Jr., Dan Goldstein, Julie Roche, and Francisco Zermeno) and states the city is "transitioning to a geographic district-based system of electing all City Council members except the City's Mayor," with Districts 1 and 6 electing first in Nov. 2026 and Districts 2-5 following in Nov. 2028; links to individual councilmember bio pages and to maphayward.org for the districting map.](https://www.hayward-ca.gov/your-government/city-council)
6. [Hayward's districting-transition portal (maphayward.org): states the city's conversion to district-based Council elections followed a California Voting Rights Act lawsuit brought on behalf of resident Jack Wu and Neighborhood Elections Now, Inc., alleging the former at-large system diluted Asian American voting power; a court-approved settlement required district elections; the city council adopted the districting plan as Ordinance No. 24-07 on Oct. 8, 2024; and Districts 1 and 6 are first to elect, in Nov. 2026, with Districts 2-5 following in Nov. 2028.](https://maphayward.org/)
7. [City of Hayward's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (aid=HWD), queried directly via its own QuickNameSearch and filings/byCandidate JSON API for all five 2026 candidates, with each available Form 460 downloaded directly via the portal's own CampaignDocuments/download endpoint and read for its actual reported totals. Real H1 2026 totals (monetary contributions raised / total expenditures): Mark Salinas $9,013 / $11,160, filed under his continuing "Mark Salinas For Mayor Of Hayward 2022" committee; George Syrop $17,090 / $10,521; Julie Roche $6,996 / $1,162. Tom Wong and Brian Schott have each filed only an FPPC Form 501 candidate-intention statement, with no Form 460 on file for either as of this dataset's retrieval.](https://netfile.com/public/HWD/campaign)
8. [Wikipedia's Hayward, California article -- 2020 census population (162,954), cited only for general context.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayward,_California)
9. [City of Hayward -- Mayor Mark Salinas's own official biography page: his education (BA La Raza Studies 1997, MA Educational Administration and Public Policy Studies 1999, both San Francisco State), career (Ethnic Studies and History Instructor at Chabot College; Executive Director, The Kids' Breakfast Club), political timeline (first elected to Council 2010, re-elected 2016 and 2020, elected Mayor Nov. 2022), and community roles (St. Rose Hospital Foundation board, founding member of the Hayward Early Learning Committee, inaugural chair of the Friends of Chabot College Foundation, Hayward Rotary and Latino Business Roundtable affiliations, Words for Lunch co-founder, Chabot College Puente Project mentor).](https://www.hayward-ca.gov/your-government/city-council/mayor-mark-salinas)
10. [Tom Wong's own 2026 campaign site (tomforhaywardmayor2026.com): self-description, attributed in text -- roughly 30 years of private-security experience plus five years in public-safety roles, small-business ownership, education (AA Administration of Justice, Skyline College; pursuing an LLM in international business law, University of London), and his detailed seven-point "Hayward First Agenda" platform (halting data-center expansion in favor of housing, senior property-tax relief, more police officers and detectives, "Hire Local" policies and zero-interest small-business loans, a Chabot College hiring pipeline, utility-cost caps, and neighborhood revitalization).](https://tomforhaywardmayor2026.com)

## The rest of the ballot

Mayor of Hayward is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/

## How to cite this page

Vote or Else, "Mayor of Hayward — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/hayward-mayor (sources last retrieved September 1, 2026).

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