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City of Newport Beach · Statewide General Election

Newport Beach City Council, District 6

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 your district's seat on Newport Beach's 7-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Newport Beach has no directly-elected Mayor -- the council selects a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem annually from among its own members. Not all seven districts are elected the same year -- only Districts 1, 3, 4, and 6 have terms expiring in 2026. A 4-year term.

Incumbent Lauren Kleiman -- Newport Beach's sitting, council-selected Mayor -- is running for re-election to her District 6 council seat against challenger Andrew P. Gerken. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff.

This person holds District 6's seat on Newport Beach's 7-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Newport Beach has no directly-elected Mayor -- the council selects a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem annually from among its own members, and the District 6 seat is currently held by the sitting Mayor. Not all seven districts are elected the same year -- only Districts 1, 3, 4, and 6 have terms expiring in 2026. A 4-year term.

Kleiman is the incumbent District 6 councilmember and, per Wikipedia's current Newport Beach government page, the city's sitting Mayor -- an annual leadership role the council chooses from among its own members, not a separately elected office, and independently corroborating her own filed ballot designation of "Mayor/Businesswoman." Beyond that confirmed officeholding, no independent biography, news coverage, or campaign platform was confirmed for either candidate in this pass despite a real search effort -- a documented gap, not a claim that no such material exists.

Lauren Kleiman

Filed her candidacy under the ballot designation "Mayor/Businesswoman" -- independently confirmed as accurate by Wikipedia's current Newport Beach government page, which names her the sitting Mayor. No independently confirmed campaign site, official city biography (newportbeachca.gov returned an access error on direct fetch), or news coverage describing her council record or platform was found in this pass.

Strengths

Currently serving as Mayor -- chosen for that role by her fellow councilmembers, a marker of standing among her colleagues -- on top of her District 6 council seat.

Trade-offs

No independently confirmed platform or voting record for her current term was found in this pass, so this dataset cannot describe what she has actually done in office or as Mayor.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for her 2026 campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

Andrew P. Gerken

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Retired Surgeon." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.

Strengths

A medical career, including surgical practice, suggests exposure to complex regulated systems and public-health considerations relevant to city governance.

Trade-offs

No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed occupation, and no prior elected office was found either.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

Source review: Strong (84/100) · 2 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with a narrow source base.

  • ocvote.gov (opens in a new tab)OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Newport Beach section (pages 134-138 of 188): confirms City Council District 1 (2 qualified candidates), District 3 (3), District 4 (1, unopposed), and District 6 (2) as the city's four November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation -- and that no Mayor or other at-large Newport Beach contest appears anywhere in the document
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Newport Beach, California article, government section: confirms Newport Beach is a council-manager charter city with a 7-member, district-elected City Council (4-year terms) and no directly-elected Mayor -- the council chooses a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem annually from among its own members -- and independently names the sitting Mayor as Lauren Kleiman and Mayor Pro Tem as Noah Blom, plus the full current 7-member roster (Stapleton, Barto, Weigand, Grant, Blom, Kleiman, Weber), cross-checking all four of this cycle's incumbents against the county's Proof List

Last updated August 31, 2026.