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City of Newark · Statewide General Election

Newark City Council

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 holds one of two at-large seats up this cycle on Newark's 5-member City Council (four Council Members plus the Mayor): city ordinances, the budget, and land use. A 4-year term.

Four candidates are running for two seats on Newark's City Council: incumbents Matthew Jorgens and Eve Marie Little, challenged by first-time candidates Tonya Connolly and Noah Patrick Grushkin.

Newark's City Council has five members: four Council Members elected to staggered 4-year terms, plus the separately elected Mayor. Council Members set city ordinances, the budget, and land-use decisions for the city. This election fills two of the four Council seats -- Members Terrence Grindall and Julie Del Catancio, whose terms run through 2028, are not up this cycle.

The top two vote-getters win, in a single November election with no primary -- there is no runoff. Both incumbents in this field, Jorgens and Little, currently hold Council seats up for election this cycle (Little took her seat by council appointment in Dec. 2024 to fill a vacancy and is now running to keep it for a full term).

Matthew Jorgens

The incumbent, elected to Council in Nov. 2022; his filed ballot designation is simply "Incumbent." A lifelong Newark resident educated in Newark's own public schools (Bunker Elementary, Newark Junior High, Newark Memorial High), he holds a UC Davis B.A. in Economics and Political Science and is active locally as President of the Newark Optimist Club and a board member/musician with the Newark Symphonic Winds. His committee reported no contributions and no expenditures ($0/$0) on its most recent 2026 Form 460.

Strengths

A full term already on the Council, plus deep local roots and civic-volunteer involvement predating his time in office.

Trade-offs

This dataset found no independent (non-official, non-campaign-finance) reporting evaluating his council record.

Keep in mind

A $0/$0 campaign-finance report this period says nothing about his standing -- it may simply mean he has not yet started actively fundraising or spending for this race.

Eve Marie Little

The incumbent Vice Mayor, who took her Council seat by appointment on Dec. 12, 2024, filling a vacancy, and is now running for a full term; her filed ballot designation is "Councilmember/College Professor." Before Newark, she built an international hospitality and tourism career -- work in South Korea, Thailand, Peru, and Ecuador, a Texas A&M undergraduate degree, a master's from the University of Houston's Hilton College, and postgraduate study at Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, Switzerland. She currently teaches as a college professor at Cal State East Bay and Mission College, and also teaches vocational courses to inmates at the Elmwood Correctional Facility. Her most recent 2026 Form 460 reports $2,500 in contributions ($2,000 from Little herself, $500 from the Laborers' Local 304 PAC) and $170 in expenditures, ending the period with $2,950.83 cash on hand.

Strengths

Already serving as Vice Mayor about a year and a half into the seat, plus a distinctive education career and one reported union-PAC contribution alongside self-funding.

Trade-offs

She has not yet won a Newark election outright -- her only time in the seat so far came via council appointment to fill a vacancy, not a vote.

Keep in mind

$2,000 of her $2,500 raised this period came from Little herself; the $500 Laborers' Local 304 PAC contribution is the only outside support reported so far.

Tonya Connolly

A first-time candidate; her filed ballot designation is "Retired Maintenance Superintendent." This dataset searched the city's own site, Ballotpedia, Vote411, local news coverage, and general web search and found no campaign website, news coverage, or further biographical detail beyond that self-declared occupation. Her campaign has filed only an FPPC Form 501 (filed Aug. 7, 2026) -- no Form 460 is on file yet, so no fundraising total exists to report.

Strengths

not established in the sourcing found for this race.

Trade-offs

as a first-time candidate with no located public record beyond her filed paperwork, voters have little beyond her name, her prior occupation, and the fact that she qualified for the ballot.

Keep in mind

this is a documented sourcing gap, not evidence against her -- a real, multi-method search turned up nothing further to report, and her Aug. 7 filing date is the latest of any candidate in this race.

Noah Patrick Grushkin

A first-time candidate with no filed ballot designation. This dataset searched the city's own site, Ballotpedia, Vote411, local news coverage, and general web search and found no campaign website, news coverage, or biographical detail of any kind beyond his name and address. His campaign has filed only an FPPC Form 501 (filed Apr. 29, 2026) -- no Form 460 is on file yet, so no fundraising total exists to report.

Strengths

not established in the sourcing found for this race.

Trade-offs

as a first-time candidate with no located public record and no ballot designation at all, voters have essentially only his name and the fact that he qualified for the ballot to go on.

Keep in mind

this is a documented sourcing gap, not evidence against him -- a real, multi-method search turned up nothing further to report.

Source review: Strong (86/100) · 8 cited sources

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

  • alamedacountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- official Candidate List system (electionId 260, "General Election - 11/03/2026 (Official)"), queried directly via its own JSON/HTML API (POST /rov_app/candidatelist/, with raceStatus and candidateStatus left blank -- the site's default filter values 500-error the endpoint) for both Newark City-category races (categoryId 600, raceIds 99-100): For Mayor, Newark (Michael K. Hannon, the only qualified filer); For Members Of City Council, Newark (Tonya Connolly, Noah Patrick Grushkin, Matthew Jorgens, Eve Marie Little). Names ballot designations verbatim as filed: "Mayor" (Hannon), "Retired Maintenance Superintendent" (Connolly), no ballot designation (Grushkin), "Incumbent" (Jorgens), "Councilmember/College Professor" (Little). The system's own "Incumbent" field reads "N" for all five Newark candidates -- this dataset does not treat that field as reliable and instead confirms incumbency independently against the City of Newark's own roster and bio pages (see newark-clerk-directory-2026 and the three individual bio sources below).
  • newarkca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Newark -- "City Council Members" roster page (read via a dated Internet Archive snapshot after newarkca.gov itself returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass; content is the city's own official page, not an archive-only source): names Mayor Michael Hannon and Vice Mayor Eve Marie Little (both term exp. 11/2026), Council Member Matthew Jorgens (term exp. 11/2026), and Council Members Terrence Grindall and Julie Del Catancio (both term exp. 11/2028) -- confirming the Mayor's seat and two of Newark's four Council seats are up this cycle, and that Grindall's and Del Catancio's seats are not.
  • newark.org (opens in a new tab)City of Newark -- official biography page for Mayor Michael K. Hannon (read via a dated Internet Archive snapshot after newark.org/newarkca.gov returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass): born in Castro Valley, University of Portland graduate; worked for the City of San Jose for almost 27 years (2001-2011 as a Deputy Director/Code Enforcement Official), retired Dec. 2011; appointed to Newark's Planning Commission in 2013 (Vice-Chairman 2014); elected to Newark City Council Nov. 4, 2014, serving 8 years; elected Mayor Nov. 8, 2022, sworn in Dec. 8, 2022.
  • newarkca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Newark -- official biography page for Council Member Matthew Jorgens (read via a dated Internet Archive snapshot after newarkca.gov returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass): a lifelong Newark resident, graduate of Newark's own Bunker Elementary, Newark Junior High, and Newark Memorial High School; graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science; elected to Newark City Council Nov. 8, 2022; active volunteer as President of the Newark Optimist Club and a board member/musician for the Newark Symphonic Winds.
  • newark.org (opens in a new tab)City of Newark -- official biography page for Vice Mayor Eve Marie Little (read via a dated Internet Archive snapshot after newark.org/newarkca.gov returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass): took office as a Newark City Council Member Dec. 12, 2024 (filling a vacancy, per the city's own now-redirected "CityCouncilVacancy" page found in the same crawl); born in West Texas, Texas A&M graduate, prior international hospitality/tourism career (South Korea, Thailand, Peru, Ecuador), a master's from the University of Houston's Hilton College and postgraduate work at Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, Switzerland; currently a college professor at California State University-East Bay and Mission College, and teaches vocational courses to inmates at the Elmwood Correctional Facility.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Newark, California article -- names Michael K. Hannon as the sitting Mayor (infobox, sourced to the city's own site); 2020 census population (47,529); incorporated Sept. 22, 1955.
  • eastbayinsiders.substack.com (opens in a new tab)Steven Tavares's East Bay Insiders Newsletter (an independent East Bay accountability-journalism Substack) -- "2026 East Bay November Candidate List," read in full: independently names the same five Newark candidates across the same two races (Mayor: Hannon only; Council, choose 2: Connolly, Grushkin, Little, Jorgens) with each filed ballot designation verbatim, matching the county's own certified list exactly -- the only non-official, non-campaign-finance source located for this race in a real, multi-method search.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)City of Newark's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (agency code NRK, confirmed via NetFile's own public agency directory -- not the more obvious guess "NWK", a different, unrelated agency), queried directly via its own QuickNameSearch and filings/byCandidate JSON API for all five 2026 candidates, with each available FPPC 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, this period): Matthew Jorgens $0 / $0 (his Form 460 reports all zeroes); Eve Marie Little $2,500 / $170 -- her Schedule A shows $2,000 of that from Little herself and $500 from the Laborers' Local 304 PAC, ending the period with $2,950.83 cash on hand. Michael Hannon (running unopposed), Tonya Connolly, and Noah Patrick Grushkin have each filed only an FPPC Form 501 (candidate intention statement) -- no Form 460 is on file for any of the three as of this retrieval, so no fundraising total exists to report for them. Connolly's own signed Form 501 (filed Aug. 7, 2026, read directly) confirms her identity against a NetFile internal filer-name typo ("Collonny, Tonya") that otherwise surfaced in the QuickNameSearch API -- the signed form itself spells her name correctly and matches the county's candidate list exactly.

Last updated September 1, 2026.