# Mayor of Orange Compare records and positions simply between Dan Slater or Arianna Barrios for Mayor of Orange at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person presides over City Council meetings and represents Orange publicly. They vote as one of seven members on the budget and city laws. The council has six district members plus the mayor. An appointed city manager runs day-to-day government. Orange's mayor is the only council seat elected citywide. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of Orange - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/orange-mayor - 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: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 91 out of 100 (Very strong), across 4 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Dan Slater** — Orange Mayor/Businessman · Incumbent - **Arianna Barrios** — City Councilmember, City of Orange A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Mayor Dan Slater is running for a second term against Arianna Barrios, the sitting District 1 councilmember. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff. Orange's mayor is the only council seat elected citywide rather than by district. The mayor leads City Council meetings and speaks for the city in public. But the mayor is just one of seven votes on the budget and city ordinances. The other six are the district councilmembers. An appointed city manager runs the city day to day. The term is four years. The backdrop to this race is a structural budget deficit. The city closed a $4.4 million shortfall in its 2026-27 budget. It did so only by cutting $6 million in vacant jobs and taking $15 million from reserves. A 1% sales tax increase is on the November ballot. Officials have warned the city could go bankrupt within two years if it fails. Slater and Barrios have taken different paths on city money this year. Slater backed a separate plan, a draft charter, and wants voters to decide it. The charter would let Orange set its own hotel, utility franchise, and parking garage taxes. Barrios has pushed the council to revisit the budget itself. She wants that instead of leaning on new revenue measures to close the gap. ## Dan Slater The incumbent mayor. His filed ballot designation is "Orange Mayor/Businessman." On the city's draft charter proposal -- which would raise an estimated $10 million a year in new local taxes -- he has said the council should let residents decide directly: "We're going to hold it up to the voters, and it's going to be their decision on whether we want to go in this direction." No further independent biographical detail (education, prior career, or full policy platform) was found for him in this pass beyond his ballot designation and this recorded position -- a documented gap, not a claim that no such material exists. **Strengths:** Sitting mayor with a recorded, public position on the city's marquee fiscal question this cycle. **Trade-offs:** As the incumbent, he owns the outcome of a budget that required cutting vacant positions and drawing down reserves this year, whichever way voters decide on the tax measures. **Keep in mind:** This dataset could not independently verify his campaign-finance filings -- CAL-ACCESS was not checked this pass -- see Financial info. ## Arianna Barrios The sitting District 1 councilmember, running for Mayor rather than re-election to her council seat (her filed ballot designation for this race is "City Councilmember, City of Orange"). She voted to place the city's sales-tax measure on the November ballot, telling colleagues "Hope is not a strategy" and pressing them to commit to revisiting the budget if voters reject it. On the separate charter proposal, she has been more skeptical than Slater, arguing the roughly $10 million a year it would raise isn't enough on its own and that budget priorities should be worked out separately from the charter question. No further independent biographical detail (when she was first elected to the council, her prior career, or a full platform for the mayor's race specifically) was found for her in this pass -- a documented gap, not a claim that no such material exists. **Strengths:** Current council experience and a recorded, public position pressing colleagues toward more urgent budget action. **Trade-offs:** Running for mayor means giving up her District 1 seat outright rather than keeping both -- if she loses, she leaves the council entirely. **Keep in mind:** This dataset could not independently verify her campaign-finance filings -- CAL-ACCESS was not checked this pass -- see Financial info. ## Sources 1. [OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Orange section (pages 138-142 of 188): confirms Mayor (2 qualified candidates), City Council District 1 (4 qualified of 5 filed), District 4 (1), and District 6 (1) as the city's four November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [Wikipedia -- Orange, California: infobox confirms general-law incorporation (April 6, 1888), a council-manager government, a 6-member district city council, and the sitting officeholders by district, cited only for general civic-structure context, never for a candidate-specific claim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange,_California) 3. [Voice of OC -- "Is Municipal Bankruptcy on the Horizon if Orange's Sales Tax Measure Fails?" (Jun 11, 2026): the city's 2026-27 budget, its structural deficit, the November sales-tax measure, and recorded council positions from Arianna Barrios, John Gyllenhammer, Denis Bilodeau, and Jon Dumitru](https://voiceofoc.org/2026/06/is-municipal-bankruptcy-on-the-horizon-if-oranges-sales-tax-measure-fails/) 4. [Voice of OC -- "Another Orange County City Eyes a Governing Charter" (Mar 16, 2026): Orange's draft charter proposal and new local taxes it would allow, with positions from Mayor Dan Slater, Councilmember Arianna Barrios, and Councilmember Kathy Tavoularis](https://voiceofoc.org/2026/03/another-orange-county-city-eyes-a-governing-charter/) ## The rest of the ballot Mayor of Orange 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, "Mayor of Orange — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/orange-mayor (sources last retrieved August 31, 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.