# Newark City Council Compare records and positions simply between Tonya Connolly, Matthew Jorgens, Eve Marie Little, and 1 more for Newark City Council at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election 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). They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of Newark - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Seats: 2 - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/newark-council - 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 8 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Tonya Connolly** — Retired Maintenance Superintendent - **Matthew Jorgens** — Incumbent - **Eve Marie Little** — Councilmember/College Professor · Incumbent - **Noah Patrick Grushkin** A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Four candidates are running for two seats on Newark's City Council. Incumbents Matthew Jorgens and Eve Marie Little are running again. First-time candidates Tonya Connolly and Noah Patrick Grushkin are challenging them. 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 their seat by council appointment in Dec. 2024 to fill a vacancy and is now running to keep it for a full term). ## Matthew Jorgens Jorgens is the incumbent. They were elected to the Council in Nov. 2022. Their filed ballot designation is simply "Incumbent." They have lived in Newark all their life. They went to Newark's own public schools. Those were Bunker Elementary, Newark Junior High, and Newark Memorial High. They hold a UC Davis B.A. in Economics and Political Science. They are active locally as President of the Newark Optimist Club. They are also a board member and musician with the Newark Symphonic Winds. Their committee reported $0 raised and $0 spent on its most recent 2026 Form 460. **Strengths:** A full term already on the Council. They also have deep local roots and civic volunteer work from before they took office. **Trade-offs:** No independent reporting on their council record was found. That means no source outside official records and campaign filings. **Keep in mind:** A report of $0 raised and $0 spent this period says nothing about their standing. It may just mean they have not yet started to raise or spend money for this race. ## Eve Marie Little Little is the incumbent Vice Mayor. They took their Council seat by appointment on Dec. 12, 2024, filling a vacancy. They are now running for a full term. Their filed ballot designation is "Councilmember/College Professor." Before Newark, they built an international hospitality and tourism career. That work took them to South Korea, Thailand, Peru, and Ecuador. They earned a Texas A&M undergraduate degree. They then earned a master's from the University of Houston's Hilton College. They also did postgraduate study at Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, Switzerland. They now teach as a college professor at Cal State East Bay and Mission College. They also teach vocational courses to inmates at the Elmwood Correctional Facility. Their most recent 2026 Form 460 reports $2,500 raised and $170 spent. Of that, $2,000 came from Little themselves and $500 from the Laborers' Local 304 PAC. They ended the period with $2,950.83 cash on hand. **Strengths:** Little is serving as Vice Mayor, about a year and a half into the seat. They also bring a teaching career. Their filings show one union PAC contribution alongside self-funding. **Trade-offs:** They have not yet won a Newark election outright. Their only time in the seat so far came by council appointment to fill a vacancy, not by a vote. **Keep in mind:** $2,000 of their $2,500 raised this period came from Little themselves. The $500 Laborers' Local 304 PAC contribution is the only outside support reported so far. ## Tonya Connolly Connolly is a first-time candidate. Their filed ballot designation is "Retired Maintenance Superintendent." Searches of the city's own site, Ballotpedia, Vote411, and local news found no campaign website. They also found no news coverage or further life detail beyond that self-declared job. Their 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:** Connolly is a first-time candidate with no public record beyond their filed paperwork. Voters have little beyond their name, their prior job, and the fact that they qualified for the ballot. **Keep in mind:** This is a sourcing gap, not evidence against them. A real search by many methods turned up nothing further to report. Their Aug. 7 filing date is the latest of any candidate in this race. ## Noah Patrick Grushkin Grushkin is a first-time candidate with no filed ballot designation. Searches of the city's own site, Ballotpedia, Vote411, and local news found no campaign website. They found no news coverage or life detail of any kind beyond their name and address. Their 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:** Grushkin is a first-time candidate with no public record and no ballot designation at all. Voters have essentially only their name and the fact that they qualified for the ballot. **Keep in mind:** This is a sourcing gap, not evidence against them. A real search by many methods turned up nothing further to report. ## Sources 1. [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).](https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rov_app/candidatelist) 2. [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.](https://www.newarkca.gov/departments/city-council/-fsiteid-1) 3. [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.](https://www.newark.org/departments/city-council/michael-k-hannon) 4. [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.](https://www.newarkca.gov/departments/city-council-member-matthew-jorgens) 5. [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.](https://www.newark.org/departments/city-council/eve-marie-little) 6. [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.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark,_California) 7. [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.](https://eastbayinsiders.substack.com/p/2026-east-bay-november-candidate) 8. [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.](https://netfile.com/public/NRK/campaign) ## The rest of the ballot Newark City Council 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, "Newark City Council — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/newark-council (sources last retrieved September 1, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.