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City of Los Banos · Statewide General Election

Los Banos City Council, District 2

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 your district's seat on Los Banos's 5-member City Council (Mayor plus four district-elected Council Members): city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside the separately elected Mayor. A 4-year term; day-to-day operations run through an appointed City Manager.

Incumbent Refugio Morales Llamas is unopposed for a full 4-year term representing District 2 on the Los Banos City Council. He was appointed to the seat on March 9, 2026 -- the third time in four years District 2 has changed hands outside a regular election.

This person holds District 2's seat on Los Banos's 5-member City Council (Mayor plus four district-elected Council Members): city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside the separately elected Mayor. A 4-year term; day-to-day operations run through an appointed City Manager.

District 2's recent history: Doug Begonia Jr. defeated Llamas for the seat in the November 2022 election (59.7% to 40.3%), then was removed himself in a citywide recall election on November 5, 2024 that also ousted District 3's councilmember. The council appointed Evan Sanders to fill the vacancy on January 8, 2025; Sanders resigned in January 2026, and on March 9, 2026 the council appointed Llamas -- who had himself first held the seat by an earlier 2021 appointment, before losing it to Begonia the next year -- to serve out the remainder of the term. Because he was appointed rather than elected to a new term, Llamas must now win this November's election to keep the seat past December 2026.

Refugio Morales Llamas

Refugio Llamas is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who served 27 years, mostly as an infantry Platoon Commander, including a posting as a Foreign Military Advisor to Guatemala assisting with transnational organized-crime investigations, per a 2022 Los Banos Enterprise profile. He retired from the Marine Corps in 2021 and now works for Merced County as a Veteran Service Officer. Before his current appointment, he served on the Los Banos Planning Commission (2014 and 2018) and on Creekside Middle School's oversight board (2016), and previously held the District 2 council seat itself by appointment in 2021 before losing it to Begonia in 2022. He also ran for Mayor in the November 2024 election but was not elected. His filed ballot designation for this race is "Councilmember."

Strengths

27 years in the Marine Corps, ongoing county veteran-services work, two prior council stints (2021-2022, and again since March 2026), and Planning Commission experience.

Trade-offs

No opponent qualified, so voters have no comparison point; he's returning to a seat he lost outright in 2022, now by a second appointment rather than a fresh win.

Keep in mind

Llamas has now held District 2 by appointment twice (2021 and 2026) but has not won it outright in a contested election -- this November is his first chance to do so since losing it to Begonia.

No committee or disclosure record for Llamas's 2026 campaign was found this session. Merced County's own campaign-finance portal (eCampaign) requires an interactive, JavaScript-driven session this pass's automated tools could not complete, and California's CAL-ACCESS -- which covers only state-level committees, not local ones -- returned nothing useful either. This documents an absence of a reachable disclosure record, not any claim about Llamas's actual campaign finances.

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 8 cited sources

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

  • countyofmerced.com (opens in a new tab)Merced County Elections -- official "Final Qualified Candidate List" for the November 3, 2026 General Election (22-page PDF, "Candidates flagged with Authority to Release," print-stamped 8/25/2026): confirms five Los Banos offices, each Vote For: 1 -- Mayor (Michael S. Amabile, "Businessman"), Councilmember District 2 (Refugio Morales Llamas, "Councilmember"), Councilmember District 3 (Erasmo Viveros, "Public Affairs Professional"; Marcus Chavez, "Transportation Coordinator"), City Clerk (Lucy Mallonee, "Incumbent"), and City Treasurer (Lucy Lawrence, "Los Banos City Treasurer") -- and gives each candidate's filed ballot designation verbatim.
  • losbanos.org (opens in a new tab)City of Los Banos -- own "Mayor & City Council Members" page: states the City Council is "made up of the Mayor and four Council seats," that "Council Members serve four-year terms while the Mayor serves a two-year term," and that "the City Clerk and City Treasurer are also elected positions and serve four-year terms." Its own "Terms of Office" table gives each current officeholder's exact term: Mayor Michael S. Amabile (Dec. 4, 2024 - Dec. 2026); District 1, vacant (TBD); Refugio Llamas, District 2 (March 9, 2026 - Dec. 2026); Marcus Chavez, District 3 (Jan. 8, 2025 - Dec. 2026); Mayor Pro Tem Deborah Lewis, District 4 (Nov. 5, 2024 - Dec. 2028); City Clerk Lucy Mallonee (Dec. 7, 2022 - Dec. 2026); City Treasurer Lucy Lawrence (Dec. 4, 2024 - Dec. 2026) -- confirming only Mayor, District 2, and District 3 are up in 2026 alongside the separately elected Clerk and Treasurer.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Los Banos, California": used narrowly for the 2020 Census population figure (45,532).
  • losbanosenterprise.com (opens in a new tab)Los Banos Enterprise -- "Refugio Llamas Appointed to Fill Los Banos City Council District 2 Seat" (March 12, 2026): reports the council's March 9, 2026 special-meeting vote appointing Llamas to District 2 after Evan Sanders's resignation, and lays out the full chain of custody for the seat -- Doug Begonia Jr. defeated Llamas for it in November 2022 (59.7%-40.3%), voters recalled Begonia on Nov. 5, 2024, the council appointed Sanders on Jan. 8, 2025, Sanders resigned in January 2026, and Llamas was appointed back in March 2026 to serve the remainder of the term; also notes Llamas ran unsuccessfully for Mayor in November 2024 and that the seat returns to voters at the November 2026 election for a full 4-year term.
  • losbanosenterprise.com (opens in a new tab)Los Banos Enterprise -- "Refugio LLamas: Distinguished Career of Service to Community and Country" (Oct. 26, 2026 -- a 2022 candidate profile): Llamas is a retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant (27 years, mostly as an infantry Platoon Commander, including service as a Foreign Military Advisor to Guatemala on transnational organized crime), retired in 2021, now Merced County's Veteran Service Officer; a former owner of Marina's Pet Supplies; first appointed to the District 2 council seat in January 2021; served on the Los Banos Planning Commission (2014, 2018) and Creekside Middle School's oversight board (2016).
  • losbanosenterprise.com (opens in a new tab)Los Banos Enterprise -- "Los Banos City Clerk Issues Notice of Special Recall Elections for Two Councilmembers" (2024): the City Clerk's own notice of the November 5, 2024 recall election that removed the sitting District 2 and District 3 councilmembers, the vacancies the council later filled by appointment in January 2025.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- its own Power Search scope statement covers state-level campaign-finance filings only, which excludes all six Los Banos candidates' local committees by definition; direct filer-search attempts for each name returned no usable result.
  • southtechhosting.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result local campaign-finance check: Merced County's own eCampaign portal (hosted by SouthTech) is a client-rendered ASP.NET system requiring an interactive, JavaScript-driven search session; a public document-retrieval mirror (campaigndocs.co.merced.ca.us) exists but likewise requires interactive form postbacks this pass's automated fetch tools could not complete for any of the six Los Banos candidates. Documents an absence of a reachable disclosure source, not any candidate's actual campaign finances.

Last updated September 1, 2026.