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City of Pleasanton · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Pleasanton

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

Pleasanton's Mayor is the only citywide, at-large elected city office: presides over City Council meetings, represents the city publicly, and votes as one of five members on the budget and city ordinances, with day-to-day operations run by an appointed city manager. A 2-year term, subject to an 8-year term limit.

Sitting Mayor Jack Balch is running for a second term against Julie Testa, a sitting District 3 Councilmember giving up her own seat to run for the citywide office instead. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff.

Pleasanton's Mayor is the city's only citywide, at-large elected office: presides over City Council meetings, represents the city publicly, and votes as one of five members on the budget and city ordinances, with day-to-day operations run by an appointed city manager. A 2-year term, subject to an 8-year term limit shared with Council seats.

Both candidates emphasize fiscal discipline, water reliability, and public safety, but come at the office from different angles: Balch is running on his record as the sitting Mayor, while Testa -- giving up a District 3 seat she's held for eight years -- is running as a check on City Hall, explicitly stating in her own candidate statement, "I am not a builder or developer," and that residents, not special interests, should be at the center of local government.

Jack Balch

The sitting Mayor of Pleasanton and a certified public accountant (his filed ballot designation reads "Mayor/CPA"). His own candidate statement, filed with the City Clerk, opens "It's a tremendous honor to serve as your Mayor" and describes his term as having "honored my promises to strengthen public safety, advance long-term water reliability, cut bureaucracy, support vitality and local businesses, bring greater transparency of city actions, and strengthen Pleasanton's financial foundation." His stated priorities for a new term: a vibrant downtown, economic vitality, robust public safety, reliable and affordable water, continued collaboration with local schools, and clean parks and open spaces. His campaign-committee filing history with the state shows a City Council committee from 2020 and a Mayor committee from 2024, consistent with -- though not independently confirmed by news coverage of -- first winning a council seat in 2020 and the Mayor's office in 2024.

Strengths

Incumbency and a specific, self-described record across public safety, water reliability, and city finances; the largest reported campaign war chest in this race.

Trade-offs

As the incumbent, he owns the city's current fiscal and affordability challenges, which his own statement acknowledges; no independent news profile of his record beyond his own statement was found.

Keep in mind

Alameda County's own candidate list marks him "Incumbent: N" despite his being the sitting Mayor -- a filing-system quirk, not a claim about who holds the office; see the note on this contest.

Julie Testa

A sitting Pleasanton City Councilmember (District 3), her filed ballot designation reads "Councilmember, City of Pleasanton." Her own candidate statement says, "Throughout my eight years of service on the City Council, I have put residents first, listening and advocating for transparency," and states plainly, "I am not a builder or developer." She frames her candidacy around fiscal discipline, protecting clean and safe drinking water, and keeping "special interests," not residents, out of the center of local government, citing her record addressing state housing mandates, regional pressures, and local neighborhood and business concerns. All her children attended Pleasanton Unified schools.

Strengths

Eight years of council experience by her own account, plus a specific self-positioning against developer influence that distinguishes her from a typical officeholder's platform.

Trade-offs

Giving up her District 3 seat to run leaves it open regardless of the mayoral outcome (see Pleasanton City Council, District 3); no campaign-finance figures for her mayoral run were found.

Keep in mind

Her exact first-elected year (implied as roughly 2018 by "eight years of service") was not independently confirmed by a second source.

Source review: Strong (88/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • 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/) for all three Pleasanton races (categoryId 600, raceIds 104, 129, 130): For Mayor (Jack Balch, Julie Testa); For Members Of City Council #1 (Vin Kruttiventi, Kathy Narum); For Members Of City Council #3 (Reena Gupta, Jamie Yee). Names ballot designations verbatim as filed: "Mayor/CPA" (Balch), "Councilmember, City of Pleasanton" (Testa), "Business Owner" (Kruttiventi), "Businesswoman" (Narum), "Local Business Owner" (Gupta), "Communications Manager" (Yee). The system's own "Incumbent" field reads "N" for all six candidates, including sitting Mayor Jack Balch -- this dataset does not treat that field as reliable given the City of Pleasanton's own confirmation (see pleasanton-council-roster-2026) that Balch currently holds the office he is running to keep.
  • cityofpleasantonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Pleasanton -- City Clerk's official "Qualified Candidate List" for the November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election, updated 8/12/2026 at 5:00 PM (after the nomination period): names the identical six-candidate, three-race roster as the county's own Candidate List, with each candidate's own campaign phone, email, and website.
  • cityofpleasantonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Pleasanton -- City Clerk's official "Candidate Statements" booklet for the November 3, 2026 election: each of the six qualified candidates' own, self-authored statement and stated occupation, filed with and published by the city -- Kruttiventi ("Business Owner"), Narum ("Businesswoman / Nonprofit Director"), Gupta ("Entrepreneur/Workforce Consultant", age 56), Yee ("Public Health Communications Manager"), Balch ("Mayor / CPA"), and Testa ("Pleasanton City Councilmember") -- the backbone of each candidate's editorial profile here. Two candidates' statement occupations read slightly differently from their county-filed ballot designation (pleasanton-acgov-candidatelist-2026): Narum and Gupta, both noted in text rather than silently resolved.
  • cityofpleasantonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Pleasanton -- official "Mayor & City Council" page: names the sitting Mayor (Jack Balch, at-large) and all four district Councilmembers -- Jeff Nibert (District 1), Craig Eicher (District 2), Julie Testa (District 3), and Matt Gaidos (District 4, Vice Mayor) -- confirming who currently holds each seat up this cycle (Mayor and District 1 and 3) and who does not appear among this cycle's qualified candidates (Nibert).
  • cityofpleasantonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Pleasanton -- official "Elections & Measures" page: states the three November 3, 2026 seats up for election as "Councilmember from District 1," "Councilmember from District 3," and "Mayor at-large," and describes the city's council structure as "one mayor elected at-large and four council members elected by-district."
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Pleasanton, California article -- 2020 census population (79,871) and the city's council-manager government structure (a five-member council: four district representatives plus an at-large Mayor serving a 2-year term, an 8-year term limit for all seats, a Vice Mayor appointed annually by the Mayor), cited only for general context and as independent corroboration of the current roster.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)The City of Pleasanton's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (netfile.com, agency code COP), queried directly for all six 2026 candidates with each available FPPC filing downloaded and read for its actual reported figures -- real dollar amounts, not estimated. Balch's Form 460 (period Jan. 1-June 30, 2026) reports $13,955 raised and $33,158 cash on hand; Gupta's reports $4,928 raised (entirely in June 2026, when her committee organized) and $4,828 cash on hand; Yee's reports $2,949 raised and $731 cash on hand. Testa's only committee on file for this period, her 2022 City Council committee, reported zero contributions and zero expenditures for the first half of 2026; a separate "Julie A. Testa" committee organized in August 2026 (Form 501) with no Form 460 yet on file. Narum's committee reorganized for this cycle in July 2026 and likewise has no semi-annual statement yet, but reported a $5,000 personal loan to her own campaign via Form 497 on Aug. 19, 2026. Kruttiventi has filed only a Form 501 candidate intention statement -- no committee, no reportable contributions as of this dataset's retrieval.

Last updated September 1, 2026.