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City of Martinez · Statewide General Election

Martinez City Council, District 1

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 Martinez's four district-elected City Council seats, alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor, on a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for Contra Costa County's county seat. A 4-year term, decided by whichever candidate gets the most votes -- no ranked-choice voting is documented for Martinez.

Incumbent Jay Howard faces one challenger, first-time candidate Nakenya Allen, for Martinez's District 1 City Council seat -- the only Martinez city race voters will actually decide this November.

This person would hold one of Martinez's four district-elected City Council seats, alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor, on a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for Contra Costa County's county seat (about 37,000 residents as of the 2020 census). A 4-year term, decided by whichever candidate gets the most votes -- no ranked-choice voting is documented for Martinez.

Martinez's other two Nov. 2026 city races aren't decided by voters this cycle. Mayor Brianne Zorn and City Council District 4's Debbie McKillop each drew no challenger, and at its Aug. 19, 2026 meeting the City Council appointed both of them directly to new terms under California Elections Code Section 10229 rather than hold an election -- their offices will not appear on the November 3, 2026 ballot at all. District 1 is the only Martinez city contest voters will actually decide.

Jay Howard

The incumbent District 1 councilmember, seeking reelection; his filed ballot designation is "City Councilmember District 1." Elected in November 2022, Howard is the third generation of his family born and raised in Martinez's Alhambra Valley. Since 2014 he has been the Superintendent for G Swanson Construction, and serves on the boards of the Nor Cal Carpenters Regional Council's Union Local 152, Loaves and Fishes, and the Martinez Historical Society, as well as a delegate to the Carpenters' Regional Council spanning 46 counties.

Strengths

a full first term on the council, deep Alhambra Valley roots, and construction-management experience.

Trade-offs

this dataset found no independent reporting on his first term -- his bio here is the city's own page, not outside journalism.

Keep in mind

running as the incumbent, he has no confirmed 2026 campaign-finance figures on file here -- Martinez's own NetFile portal renders results client-side and could not be queried directly in this pass.

Nakenya Allen

A first-time candidate challenging the incumbent. Her filed ballot designation is "IHSS Care Worker" -- In-Home Supportive Services, the state-county program that pays caregivers to support elderly or disabled Californians living at home. This dataset searched the city's own site (her candidate statement is a PDF that Cloudflare blocks even through the workaround that reached the rest of the city's site), Ballotpedia, Wikipedia, the Martinez News-Gazette's own site search, and general web search, and found no campaign website, news coverage, or further biographical detail beyond that self-declared occupation.

Strengths

not established in the sourcing found for this race.

Trade-offs

as a first-time candidate with no located public record, voters have little beyond her name, her self-declared occupation, and the fact that she qualified for the ballot to go on.

Keep in mind

this is a documented sourcing gap, not evidence against her -- a real, multi-method search (the city's own site, Ballotpedia, Wikipedia, local news, and general web search) turned up nothing further to report.

Source review: Very strong (91/100) · 9 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • cityofmartinez.org (opens in a new tab)City of Martinez — City Clerk's "General Election 2026" page (read via a Google Translate proxy workaround after cityofmartinez.org itself returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this environment): the official notice that the Mayor and District 4 elections were cancelled and appointed in lieu of election under Elections Code Section 10229 at the City Council's Aug. 19, 2026 meeting, and the live candidate table naming both District 1 candidates (Jay Howard, incumbent, qualified 07/28/2026; Nakenya Allen, qualified 07/23/2026) with filed ballot designations and contact info, plus the Sept. 7 – Oct. 20, 2026 write-in filing window for District 1.
  • cityofmartinez.org (opens in a new tab)City of Martinez — "Mayor and City Council" page (read via the same Google Translate proxy workaround): confirms the 5-member council-manager structure (at-large Mayor, four district Councilmembers, 4-year overlapping terms) and carries each sitting member's own official biography, including District 1's Jay Howard (elected Nov. 2022; Superintendent for G Swanson Construction since 2014; Alhambra Valley native), Mayor Brianne Zorn (elected Mayor Nov. 2022; professional wetland scientist), and District 4's Debbie McKillop (on the council since Nov. 2014; the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Chief of Forensic Services).
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Positions Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": the only county-section contest in the document is County Board of Education Areas 2, 4, and 5 (under Schools) -- no Board of Supervisors, row office, or Superior Court seat appears anywhere, consistent with both Supervisor seats up this cycle (Districts 1 and 4) having been decided outright in the June 2026 primary
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (8-27-26_candidatelist_detail_final.pdf), the county's post-certification ballot-order-proofing export: shows Area 2 as a 3-candidate contest (Sarah Butler, incumbent; Pamela West; Sibyl Minighini) with each candidate's filed ballot designation and qualification date -- this export omits single-filer contests entirely, which is why Areas 4 and 5 do not appear in it (see cc-candidate-summary-2026)
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Candidate List" (8-14-26_candidatelist_summary_final.pdf), the county's complete qualified-candidate roster including single-filer contests: confirms Area 2 (Sarah Butler, Pamela West, Sibyl Minighini), Area 4 (Mike Maxwell, sole qualified candidate), and Area 5 (Clyde Henry Lewis, Jr., sole qualified candidate)
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Martinez, California article — names Martinez as the county seat of Contra Costa County, with a 2020 census population of 37,287.
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Positions Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": lists Martinez Mayor, Council District 1, and Council District 4 as the city's three offices with expiring terms this cycle.
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (8-27-26_candidatelist_detail_final.pdf), the county's post-certification ON-BALLOT export: shows Martinez Council District 1 as a 2-candidate contest (incumbent Jay Howard, legal name Jarl John Howard, and Nakenya Allen) -- this export omits single-filer contests entirely, which is why Martinez's Mayor and District 4 races do not appear in it (see martinez-cc-candidatelist-summary-2026).
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Candidate List" (8-14-26_candidatelist_summary_final.pdf), the county's complete qualified-candidate roster including single-filer contests: confirms Martinez Mayor (Brianne E. Zorn, sole qualified candidate) and Council District 4 (Debbie McKillop, sole qualified candidate) alongside the two-candidate District 1 field (Nakenya Allen, Jay Howard).

Last updated September 1, 2026.