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City of Modesto · Statewide General Election

Modesto City Council, District 5

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 represent one of Modesto's six City Council districts: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for Stanislaus County's largest city and county seat, population 218,464 per the 2020 Census. Modesto operates under a council-manager government, with a professional city manager running day-to-day operations while the elected council sets policy. The Mayor is elected at-large citywide to a 4-year term and isn't on this ballot; the six council seats are elected by district to staggered 4-year terms, with Districts 2, 4, and 5 up this November.

Incumbent Vice Mayor Jeremiah Williams seeks another term representing Modesto's District 5 against Jared Sylvia, a data scientist making his first run for elected office.

Modesto is Stanislaus County's largest city and county seat, with about 218,464 residents per the 2020 Census, operating under a council-manager government with an at-large Mayor and six district-elected Council seats on staggered 4-year terms. District 5 is one of three Council seats up in November 2026 and draws two candidates for the one seat.

Williams filed for re-election in late July; Sylvia filed on the last full day before the deadline. Their campaigns look very different so far: Williams has one large union-PAC contribution on record, while Sylvia has no campaign committee at all with the city as of this dataset's retrieval.

How Modesto picks its Vice Mayor

Modesto's Vice Mayor isn't a separately elected office. The Mayor is elected at-large citywide, but the Vice Mayor title is selected by the City Council from among its own six district-elected members -- currently Jeremiah Williams. It's a council leadership role, not an additional seat voters fill directly.

Jeremiah Williams

The incumbent and sitting Vice Mayor, whose ballot designation is "Councilmember/Businessman." He filed for re-election on July 24, 2026. His campaign's most recent filing shows a single itemized contribution, from Modesto's firefighters' union political action committee.

Strengths

The council's own choice for Vice Mayor, and also a fellow councilmember's donor -- he gave $200 to Eric Alvarez's campaign this cycle, per Alvarez's own filed disclosure.

Trade-offs

His own campaign fundraising so far this cycle is modest relative to his District 2 and District 4 counterparts -- $1,289 raised and on hand as of the most recent filing, all from one union PAC.

Keep in mind

A single large institutional donor (the Modesto Firefighters Association Local 1289 PAC) is his only itemized contribution on record so far this cycle -- worth watching whether his fundraising broadens as the election nears.

Jared Sylvia

A first-time candidate for elected office, with the ballot designation "Data Scientist." He filed on August 6, 2026, the day before the filing deadline closed. No campaign committee or financial filing of any kind was found for him with the City of Modesto, and no independent news coverage of his candidacy was found this session.

Strengths

A technical/analytical professional background distinct from the incumbent's -- this dataset found no further independent detail about his employer or specific work.

Trade-offs

No prior public office and no discoverable public record of campaign activity -- no committee, no filed statements, no coverage found by this dataset despite a genuine search.

Keep in mind

The absence of a campaign committee doesn't necessarily mean no campaign activity -- California candidates can raise or spend up to $2,000 before state law requires one.

Source review: Strong (87/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • stanvote.gov (opens in a new tab)Stanislaus County Registrar of Voters -- official "Unofficial Candidate List," General Election Nov. 3, 2026 (document timestamped by the county 7:57 AM 8/31/2026): under "MUNICIPAL OFFICES / CITY OF MODESTO," lists exactly three contests -- Council Member, District 2 (Vote for 1: *Eric E. Alvarez, Jon Rodriguez, Juan Telles), Council Member, District 4 (Vote for 1: *Nick Bavaro), and Council Member, District 5 (Vote for 1: *Jeremiah Williams, Jared Sylvia) -- with no Modesto Mayor contest and no county-level Stanislaus office anywhere in the document.
  • modestogov.com (opens in a new tab)City of Modesto -- own "2026 General Municipal Election" page: confirms "Council Districts 2, 4, and 5" are up in November 2026, that the Mayor is "elected at-large on a nonpartisan basis for four-year terms" and not on this ballot, and gives the candidate nomination period (July 13 - Aug. 7, 2026).
  • modestogov.com (opens in a new tab)City of Modesto -- own "Election Candidate List - Sign Up List" page (the City Clerk's real-time filing record): District 2 -- Eric E. Alvarez (incumbent, filed 7/29/2026), Juan Telles (filed 8/6/2026), Jon Rodriguez (filed 8/6/2026); District 4 -- Nick Bavaro (incumbent, filed 7/20/2026), plus Matthew Gonzalez and Tyler Anthony Slacks, both marked "DID NOT RETURN" their nomination papers; District 5 -- Jeremiah Williams (incumbent, filed 7/24/2026), Jared Sylvia (filed 8/6/2026) -- independently corroborates the county's roster and supplies exact filing dates.
  • modestogov.com (opens in a new tab)City of Modesto -- own "Council Members" page (live roster): Mayor Sue Zwahlen (at-large), District 1 Rosa Escutia-Braaton, District 2 Eric E. Alvarez, District 3 Chris Ricci, District 4 Nick Bavaro, District 5 Vice Mayor Jeremiah Williams, District 6 David Wright -- confirms the 6-district-plus-at-large-Mayor structure and that each incumbent listed above is the sitting officeholder for their district.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Modesto, California": used narrowly for its 2020 Census population figure (218,464) and for confirming the council-manager government type and the at-large-Mayor/by-district-council structure; its named current officials were not used where the city's own live pages (see modesto-cityclerk-councilmembers-2026) could confirm the same facts more directly.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)Jeremiah Williams's committee ("Jeremiah Williams for Modesto City Council District 5 2026") FPPC Form 460, semi-annual statement for 1/1-6/30/2026, filed 7/31/2026, downloaded via the City of Modesto's NetFile public API and read directly: a single itemized contribution this period, $1,289 from the Modesto Firefighters Association Local 1289 PAC (the same PAC that gave to Alvarez), $0 spent, $1,289 cash on hand as of 6/30/2026 -- a comparatively modest, still-building campaign relative to Alvarez's and Bavaro's.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result campaign-finance check: the City of Modesto's own NetFile public API (QuickNameSearch, aid=MOD) returned zero candidates, committees, or filings of any kind under either "Sylvia" or "Jared" as of this session's retrieval. Documents the absence of any campaign committee for Jared Sylvia, not a claim about his actual finances -- see the same $2,000 committee-formation-threshold caveat on Rodriguez's negative-result entry.

Last updated September 1, 2026.