Skip to main content

City of Plymouth · Statewide General Election

Plymouth City Council

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 two open seats on Plymouth's five-member City Council for a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and local land use in a General Law city of 1,078 people (2020 Census), incorporated February 8, 1917, in the Sierra foothills of Amador County. Plymouth doesn't directly elect a Mayor -- no Plymouth Mayor's race appears anywhere on Amador County's own Nov. 2026 election documents, which list only '2 Councilmember seats (4-yr)' for Plymouth (unlike Amador City's separately elected City Clerk seat or Sutter Creek's City Treasurer seat on the very same document) -- so the Mayor and Vice Mayor titles are held by two of the sitting Council Members. Don Nunn currently holds the Mayor title and Holger Hornisch is Vice Mayor, per the city's own website; neither is a candidate in this specific 2026 race, meaning their own seats aren't up this cycle.

Two of Plymouth's City Council seats are up this cycle, and three candidates filed for them: sitting appointed incumbent Wendy J. Bottomley, plus Raymond Estey and Stephanie Moreno. With three candidates for two seats, this is a genuinely contested race that goes to the ballot -- not a case where the city could appoint winners and skip the election.

This person would hold one of two open seats on Plymouth's five-member City Council for a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and local land use in a General Law city of 1,078 people (2020 Census), incorporated February 8, 1917, in the Sierra foothills of Amador County. No separately elected 'Mayor of Plymouth' exists -- Amador County's own pre-filing election notice lists only '2 Councilmember seats (4-yr)' for Plymouth, while the same document lists a separately elected City Clerk for Amador City and a separately elected City Treasurer for Sutter Creek, so the document's silence specifically on a Plymouth Mayor's race is a real structural signal. The City of Plymouth's own website corroborates this: the current Mayor (Don Nunn) and Vice Mayor (Holger Hornisch) are titles held by two of the five sitting Council Members, and neither is a candidate in this race -- their own seats simply aren't up this cycle.

Candidate background here is thin for two of the three, but not withheld -- it reflects a real access gap in this pass's tooling. Beyond Wendy Bottomley's confirmed appointed incumbency and one sourced fact about her (below), no independently verifiable occupation, platform, or civic record was found for either Raymond Estey or Stephanie Moreno despite a genuine search: the City of Plymouth's own site search returned nothing for either name, neither appears on the city's Planning Commission roster, and the Amador Ledger Dispatch -- the county's paper of record, and otherwise a working source for this contest -- has no article mentioning either candidate.

Plymouth's full council size (five seats: Mayor, Vice Mayor, and three Council Members) is confirmed directly by the city's own website, unlike some sibling Amador County jurisdictions in this dataset where the total wasn't independently stated by any source reached. What's confirmed either way: two seats are contested by three candidates, so this goes to the ballot regardless of who wins.

Wendy J. Bottomley

Wendy J. Bottomley is the sole incumbent in this race, confirmed both as a sitting Plymouth City Council Member on the city's own website and as an 'appointed incumbent' on Amador County's certified candidate list -- meaning she was appointed to her seat rather than originally elected to it, and is now seeking a full term. The Ledger Dispatch, reporting on an Aug. 2026 council meeting, describes her conducting a detailed review of the city's proposed budget and requesting clarification from city staff, consistent with an accounting background.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent with current Council experience; independent news coverage describes budget-review engagement consistent with an accounting background.

Trade-offs

Holds her seat by appointment, not a prior election -- her first time facing voters for it. No broader platform found beyond this one reported instance.

Keep in mind

The 'appointed incumbent' designation is the county's own term, not a characterization -- it simply means she filled a vacancy before this election.

Raymond Estey

Raymond Estey is a non-incumbent candidate for Plymouth City Council, confirmed as a qualified candidate by Amador County's own certified candidate list. No occupation details, platform, or civic background were found for him on the city's own website, in the Ledger Dispatch, or via this pass's available search methods.

Strengths

None independently confirmed beyond his confirmed status as a qualified candidate.

Trade-offs

No platform, civic background, or news coverage was found for his 2026 candidacy.

Keep in mind

A bare public record is the norm for non-incumbent candidates in this race, not a red flag specific to him.

Stephanie Moreno

Stephanie Moreno is a non-incumbent candidate for Plymouth City Council, confirmed as a qualified candidate by Amador County's own certified candidate list. No occupation details, platform, or civic background were found for her on the city's own website, in the Ledger Dispatch, or via this pass's available search methods.

Strengths

None independently confirmed beyond her confirmed status as a qualified candidate.

Trade-offs

No platform, civic background, or news coverage was found for her 2026 candidacy.

Keep in mind

A bare public record is the norm for non-incumbent candidates in this race, not a red flag specific to her.

Source review: Strong (81/100) · 6 cited sources

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

  • amadorcounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Amador County Elections -- "General Election - 11/03/2026 -- Contests: 4201 to 7753 -- Candidate List -- Qualified Candidates Only" (form CFMR009, print date 08/27/2026): names Wendy J. Bottomley (Appointed Incumbent), Raymond Estey, and Stephanie Moreno as the three qualified candidates for City of Plymouth Councilmember, Contest 6301, Vote For 2, marked On Ballot: Yes.
  • amadorcounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Amador County Office of Registrar of Voters -- "Offices for the November 3, 2026 General Election": lists Plymouth as '2 Councilmember seats (4-yr)' -- no separate Mayor, City Clerk, or City Treasurer office, unlike Amador City (City Clerk) and Sutter Creek (City Treasurer) on the very same document.
  • cityofplymouth.org (opens in a new tab)City of Plymouth -- City Council page: names the sitting five-member Council (Mayor Don Nunn, Vice Mayor Holger Hornisch, and Council Members Wendy Cranford, Deborah Dill, and Wendy Bottomley) -- confirms the total council size, Bottomley's sitting incumbency, and that neither Mayor/Vice Mayor titleholder is a candidate in this 2026 race.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Plymouth, California": used narrowly for the February 8, 1917 incorporation date and the 2020 Census population figure (1,078).
  • ledger.news (opens in a new tab)Ledger Dispatch -- "City of Plymouth works to clarify latest budget" (by Mia Huss, Aug. 31, 2026): reports incumbent Wendy Bottomley conducting a detailed review of the city's proposed budget and requesting staff clarification, consistent with an accounting background; independently corroborates the 5-member council via a 4-0-with-one-abstention vote. Does not mention Raymond Estey or Stephanie Moreno.
  • amadorcounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Amador County's own elections and campaign-disclosure pages returned HTTP 403 (the same Akamai-style block documented for the county's PDF sources); the state's Cal-Access candidate/committee search is a client-rendered single-page app that returned no static, fetchable filer data -- a documented negative result for all three Plymouth City Council candidates, not a claim about their actual finances.

Last updated September 2, 2026.