# Rancho Cordova City Council, District 2 Elliott Stevenson is running uncontested for Rancho Cordova City Council, District 2. Full ballot at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Rancho Cordova's five-member City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. An appointed city manager runs daily operations. The Mayor and Vice Mayor are not elected separately. Those two positions rotate every December among the five council members. Colleagues choose who fills them. Only District 2 and District 5 are up this cycle. Districts 1, 3, and 4 were last elected in 2024. They are not up again until 2028. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of Rancho Cordova - 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/rancho-cordova-council-2 - 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: September 1, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 84 out of 100 (Strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Elliott Stevenson** — Planning Commissioner, City of Rancho Cordova A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Only one candidate qualified for Rancho Cordova's District 2 council seat: Elliott Stevenson, an attorney and current Planning Commissioner. Sitting Mayor Garrett Gatewood, who has held this seat since a 2017 council appointment, did not file for reelection -- so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome. Rancho Cordova's City Council has five members, one per district, each serving a 4-year term. The Council sets city ordinances, the budget, and land-use policy; an appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations. The Mayor and Vice Mayor are not elected directly -- the two roles rotate annually each December among the five sitting councilmembers, chosen by their colleagues. Only District 2 and District 5 are up this cycle; Districts 1, 3, and 4 were last elected in 2024 and return in 2028. With no opponent and an open seat -- the sitting Mayor chose not to seek another term here -- the useful question isn't who to pick but who is about to take the seat and what they've said about it. Stevenson was nominated to the Planning Commission by Gatewood himself, the outgoing District 2 councilmember, following the city's practice of matching each Planning Commissioner to the councilmember from their own district. ## Elliott Stevenson Unopposed for the open District 2 seat. A licensed California attorney (J.D., Lincoln Law School of Sacramento; B.A., Sacramento State) and a commissioned JAG Officer in the California State Guard, Stevenson currently serves on Rancho Cordova's Planning Commission, nominated by outgoing District 2 Councilmember Garrett Gatewood. They describe themselves as "the third of four generations of Rancho Cordova residents" -- their family's roots trace to their grandfather's 1960s posting at Mather Air Force Base. In the community, they are President of the Mitchell Middle School PTSO and founded I Love Rancho Cordova, a local nonprofit focused on community pride and city-focused initiatives. Their filed ballot designation is "Planning Commissioner, City of Rancho Cordova." **Strengths:** Local roots across four generations, a legal and public-service background, and a seat on the city's Planning Commission -- exposure to the land-use questions the Council also handles. **Trade-offs:** No prior elected office, and this dataset found no independent (non-official) reporting evaluating their Planning Commission record so far. **Keep in mind:** Running unopposed, they have had no occasion to file a campaign-finance disclosure with a reportable dollar figure, and this pass could not confirm through CAL-ACCESS or a NetFile-style portal whether any committee exists for their campaign. ## Sources 1. [Sacramento County Registrar of Voters -- official Nov. 3, 2026 General Election Roster of Candidates, read directly at its server-rendered address (elections.saccounty.gov redirects there from its content/vre/... front-end path): names both Rancho Cordova City Council contests as "On Ballot: Yes," each Vote for 1 -- District 2 (contest 5533: Elliott Stevenson, Qualified) and District 5 (contest 5536: Tegan Mauldin, Linda Budge, and Lilia Darbinyan, all Qualified; Sheikh Zulkader, Did Not Qualify) -- with each candidate's filed ballot designation verbatim.](https://elections.saccounty.gov/us/en/campaign-services/candidate-report.html) 2. [City of Rancho Cordova -- official City Council page (read via dated Internet Archive snapshots after cityofranchocordova.org itself returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass; content is the city's own official page, not an archive-only source). A Jan. 2026 snapshot names the sitting Council: Mayor Garrett Gatewood, Vice Mayor Linda Budge, and Council Members David M. Sander, Joe Little, and Siri Pulipati, and states in its own words that "Two Council seats for District 2 and District 5 will be up for election in November 2026" while Districts 1, 3, and 4 (elected Nov. 2024) are next up in 2028. Its elected-members table gives explicit district numbers for Sander (1), Little (3), and Pulipati (4) but not, in that table, for Gatewood or Budge (both elected Nov. 2022, term Dec. 2022-Dec. 2026) -- district assignment for those two is established independently (see the rancho_cordova_contests() code comment). Also confirms the Mayor/Vice Mayor rotation is annual, in December, chosen by the council's own members rather than elected separately.](https://www.cityofranchocordova.org/departments/city-council) 3. [City of Rancho Cordova -- official Elections page (read via a dated Internet Archive snapshot after cityofranchocordova.org itself returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass; content is the city's own official page, not an archive-only source), Feb. 2026 snapshot: states "Two (2) City Council District seats are up for election: District 2 and District 5" for the Nov. 3, 2026 General Election, independently matching the county's own roster; also gives the candidate nomination period (July 13-Aug. 7, 2026) and the FPPC Form 501/Form 410 filing requirements, with Form 501 filed with the City Clerk's office and Form 410 (once $2,000 is raised or spent) with the Secretary of State -- no NetFile or other searchable online campaign-finance portal is referenced on this page.](https://www.cityofranchocordova.org/departments/city-clerk/elections) 4. [Wikipedia's Rancho Cordova, California article -- confirms the council-manager form of government, a 5-member City Council with an annually rotating Mayor chosen by council peers, and names Garrett Gatewood as Mayor and Linda Budge as Vice Mayor alongside Council Members David Sander, Joe Little, and Siri Pulipati; does not itself mention the 2026 election or any 2026 candidate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_Cordova,_California) 5. [City of Rancho Cordova -- official Planning Commission biography page for Elliott Stevenson, read via a dated Internet Archive snapshot (March 2026) after cityofranchocordova.org itself returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass: an attorney (Juris Doctorate, Lincoln Law School of Sacramento; B.A., Sacramento State) and commissioned JAG Officer in the California State Guard, self-described as "a resident of District 2" and "the third of four generations of Rancho Cordova residents" (family roots trace to his grandfather's 1960s Air Force posting at Mather Air Force Base); President of the Mitchell Middle School PTSO and founder of the nonprofit I Love Rancho Cordova; the page states he was "Nominated by Councilmember Gatewood" to the Planning Commission.](https://www.cityofranchocordova.org/departments/community-development/planning/planning-commission/elliott-stevenson) 6. [City of Rancho Cordova -- official Planning Commission roster page, read via dated Internet Archive snapshots (Jan. and Feb. 2025) after cityofranchocordova.org itself returned HTTP 403 to direct fetches in this pass: names the seven Planning Commissioners and which councilmember nominated each of the five district seats (Devarapalli nom. by Pulipati, Frechette nom. by Sander, McGarvey nom. by Terry, Stauss-Vlassopoulos nom. by Budge, Tripette nom. by Gatewood) plus two at-large seats -- "Tegan Knifton" and Dave Huhn, P.E. -- confirming Tegan Knifton/Mauldin's seat is at-large, not district-nominated, and that each councilmember nominates the commissioner from their own district, the basis for placing Gatewood in District 2 by elimination.](https://www.cityofranchocordova.org/departments/community-development/planning/planning-commission) ## The rest of the ballot Rancho Cordova City Council, District 2 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, "Rancho Cordova City Council, District 2 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/rancho-cordova-council-2 (sources last retrieved September 1, 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.