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City of Oxnard · Statewide General Election

Oxnard City Council, District 2

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 would hold one of six district seats on Oxnard's City Council, alongside a separately, directly elected Mayor: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for Ventura County's largest city, population about 202,000. A 4-year term, staggered so roughly half the six districts are up every two years -- Districts 1, 2, and 5 are up this cycle; Districts 3, 4, and 6 (last elected in 2024) are not. Oxnard's Mayor (Luis McArthur, elected November 2024) and its separately elected City Clerk and City Treasurer are also directly elected citywide, but none of the three is on this cycle's ballot -- neither the county's on-ballot nor its off-ballot Nov. 2026 candidate documents list a contest for any of them. Oxnard operates under a council-manager form of government; day-to-day operations run through an appointed city manager.

Incumbent Gabe Teran, appointed to the seat in 2021 and elected outright that November, faces Lizanne Nañez -- a fellow applicant for that same 2021 appointment who is now making her own run for the seat.

This person would hold one of six district seats on Oxnard's City Council, alongside a separately, directly elected Mayor: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for Ventura County's largest city, about 202,000 residents. A 4-year term, staggered so roughly half the six districts are up every two years -- Districts 1, 2, and 5 are up this cycle; Districts 3, 4, and 6 (last elected in 2024) are not. Oxnard's Mayor (Luis McArthur, elected November 2024), City Clerk, and City Treasurer are also directly elected citywide, but none of the three is on this cycle's ballot -- neither the county's on-ballot nor its off-ballot Nov. 2026 candidate documents list a contest for any of them. Oxnard operates under a council-manager form of government; day-to-day operations run through an appointed city manager.

Teran was appointed to this seat in February 2021 to fill a vacancy left by Carmen Ramirez's election to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, then won a November 2021 special election over two other candidates to serve the remainder of Ramirez's term, which ran through November 2022. This dataset did not independently verify whether he also won a separate November 2022 election for a full term; he has continuously held the seat since 2021 per the city's current roster and Wikipedia's infobox, which separately lists him as Mayor Pro Tempore.

Gabriel "Gabe" Teran

Appointed to the District 2 seat in February 2021 -- then a Ventura County Office of Education employee, a three-time elected chair of the Fremont South Neighborhood Council, and a Parks & Recreation commissioner since 2017 -- and elected outright that November over challengers Tai Hartley and Eduardo Huerta. He holds a master's degree in management and leadership from Western Governors University and cited 18 years of youth, family, and educator-focused direct-service work in his 2021 candidate Q&A. Wikipedia's current infobox for the city also lists him as Mayor Pro Tempore.

Strengths

Five-plus years of council incumbency, a master's degree, nearly two decades of relevant community-service work, and the added standing of Mayor Pro Tempore.

Trade-offs

No 2026-specific platform coverage was found this session -- his most detailed public statements on the record date to his 2021 special-election Q&A.

Keep in mind

His 2021 priorities centered on restoring city services cut in prior budget rounds and upholding the Measure E sales-tax commitment; whether those remain his 2026 priorities was not independently confirmed this session.

Lizanne Nañez

One of roughly a dozen applicants who interviewed for the same District 2 council appointment Teran ultimately received in February 2021, and told the Ventura County Star at the time that she intended to run in that fall's special election. The special election's actual three-candidate field that October, however, did not include her, per the Star's own coverage -- this dataset could not confirm why. She now runs under the ballot designation 'Oxnard Businesswoman.'

Strengths

A documented five-year history of interest in, and community engagement with, this specific council seat, dating to the 2021 appointment process.

Trade-offs

Her business isn't named in any source found this session -- just the ballot designation 'Oxnard Businesswoman' -- and no coverage of a completed campaign, 2021 or 2026, was found.

Keep in mind

The mismatch between her stated 2021 intent to run and her absence from that year's actual special-election field is a real, sourced gap this dataset flags rather than guesses at.

Source review: Very strong (90/100) · 9 cited sources

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

  • clerkrecorder.venturacounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters -- November 3, 2026 General Election Contest/Candidate Proof List (filtered to on-ballot contests): the City of Oxnard section carries exactly three contests -- District 1 (three qualified candidates: John Barrick, incumbent Bert E. Perello, Eduardo Huerta), District 2 (three filers shown but only two qualified: Lizanne Nañez, incumbent Gabriel "Gabe" Teran), and District 5 (two qualified candidates: Noemi Corpuz, incumbent Gabriela Basua) -- with each candidate's self-filed ballot designation
  • clerkrecorder.venturacounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters -- November 3, 2026 General Election Contest/Candidate Proof List, off-ballot companion document (single-filer and appointed-in-lieu contests under Elections Code Section 10229): carries no City of Oxnard entry of any kind -- corroborating, by absence, that Oxnard's Mayor, City Clerk, and City Treasurer seats are simply not up this cycle rather than quietly decided by a single filer
  • vcstar.com (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Star -- "Who's running for city council, mayor this November? Here's the lineup" (Cheri Carlson, Aug. 17, 2026): independently lists the same seven Oxnard candidates across the same three districts as the county's own document, and lists no Oxnard mayoral race among any city in the county
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- Oxnard, California: infobox government section -- council-manager government type, Mayor Luis McArthur, Mayor Pro Tempore Gabe Teran, City Council (Gabriela Basua, Bert Perello, Michaela Perez, Gabriela Rodriguez, Aaron Starr), City Treasurer Phil Molina, City Clerk Luly Lopez, and the 2020 Census population of 202,063
  • vcstar.com (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Star -- "Some Oxnard neighborhoods are in line for new City Council members. Here's the breakdown" (Brian J. Varela, March 2, 2022): confirms Oxnard has six council districts and, as of that redistricting cycle, that Gabe Teran represented District 2, Bert Perello District 1, and Gabriela Basua District 5 -- the same three seats and, for two of the three, the same incumbents on this cycle's ballot
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result campaign-finance check (Cal-Access covers state-level contests only; no filer found for any of the seven District 1/2/5 candidates in this dataset's cached statewide snapshot)
  • public.netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result local campaign-finance check: Ventura County's own NetFile public portal (public.netfile.com/pub2/?AID=VCO), linked from the county's own campaign-finance-reports-by-city page, is a client-rendered single-page app with no static content and no reachable public API endpoint found this session; Oxnard's own city-clerk campaign-disclosure page (oxnard.gov/city-clerks-office/election-information/campaign-disclosure-statements) returned a bare Cloudflare 403 on every automated attempt, browser User-Agent included
  • vcstar.com (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Star -- "Oxnard parks commissioner Gabe Teran to serve on City Council through November" (Wendy Leung, Feb. 5, 2021): Teran, then 38, appointed to the District 2 seat vacated by Carmen Ramirez (elected to the county Board of Supervisors); his prior roles as a Ventura County Office of Education employee, Fremont South neighborhood council chair, and Parks & Recreation commissioner; names Lizanne Nañez among six other applicants who told the Star they intended to run in the November 2021 special election
  • vcstar.com (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Star -- "Oxnard City Council District 2 candidates lay out priorities ahead of special election" (Brian J. Varela, Oct. 23, 2021): the actual Nov. 2, 2021 special election field was three candidates -- incumbent Gabe Teran, Tai Hartley, and Eduardo Q. Huerta (a then-Assembly Speaker's-office-adjacent consultant, age 40) -- with no Lizanne Nañez on the ballot despite her stated intent in Feb. 2021; Q&A responses give Teran's master's degree and 18 years of youth/health-services work and Huerta's political-consulting background

Last updated September 1, 2026.