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City of Redlands · Statewide General Election

Redlands City Council, District 1

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 holds your district's seat on Redlands' 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, under a council-manager government -- an appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. A 4-year term. Redlands does not directly elect a Mayor: the council selects one of its own members to serve in that role on a rotating basis (currently Mario Saucedo, District 3, since 2024). The city's five districts elect in staggered groups -- Districts 2 and 4 last went before voters in November 2024; Districts 1, 3, and 5 are up this November.

Three candidates are running for Redlands' City Council District 1 seat on the November 3, 2026 ballot: incumbent Denise Davis, Doug Gonzales, and Andrew Hoder. Whoever gets the most votes wins outright -- there is no primary or runoff.

This person would hold District 1's seat on Redlands' 5-member, district-elected City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, under a council-manager government -- an appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. A 4-year term. Redlands does not directly elect a Mayor; the council selects one of its own members for that role on a rotating basis. The city's five districts elect in staggered groups -- Districts 2 and 4 last went before voters in November 2024, Districts 1, 3, and 5 this November.

Davis, first elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, is seeking a third term. Gonzales, whose filed ballot designation is "Small Business Owner," and Hoder, a "Retired Airline Pilot," are both first-time candidates for this seat; neither has an independent public record found in this pass beyond that designation.

Denise Davis

Denise Davis is Redlands' incumbent District 1 councilmember, first elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, having previously served as Mayor Pro Tempore from 2018 to 2021. She graduated from the University of Redlands' Johnston Center for Integrative Studies in 2006 and earned a master's degree in Social and Cultural Psychology from the London School of Economics in 2008 as a Rotary International Scholar. She works in higher education -- student affairs and teaching at the University of Oregon, the University of Redlands, and currently UC Riverside -- and holds seats on the city's Historic and Scenic Preservation and Traffic & Parking commissions, plus the CONFIRE Board and OMNITRANS. Her filed ballot designation is "Redlands City Council Member."

Strengths

Eight years on the council, including three as Mayor Pro Tempore -- more experience than either opponent; a specific record and two endorsements cited on her own site.

Trade-offs

No independent news coverage of her council record was found; financial info could not be retrieved. Her site's claims and endorsements are her own campaign's voice.

Keep in mind

Two terms plus a Mayor Pro Tem stint is real tenure -- weigh it as continuity and institutional knowledge, or as a long incumbency, depending on your view.

Doug Gonzales

Doug (Douglas) Gonzales is a first-time candidate challenging incumbent Denise Davis for the District 1 seat. His filed ballot designation is "Small Business Owner." No independent news coverage, campaign website, or civic-board record was found for him in this pass beyond his own filing with the city and county -- Bing and DuckDuckGo searches for him by name returned nothing relevant, and neither local paper covering Redlands had election-specific coverage of this race as of this retrieval.

Strengths

A small-business background, distinct from either opponent's stated occupation -- the only concrete fact this pass could confirm about him.

Trade-offs

No platform, campaign site, or independent record of his business or civic involvement was found anywhere; financial info was likewise unavailable.

Keep in mind

A thin public profile isn't a red flag on its own for a first-time candidate -- but this dataset has far less to go on for him than for the incumbent.

Andrew Hoder

Andrew Hoder is a first-time candidate challenging incumbent Denise Davis for the District 1 seat. His filed ballot designation is "Retired Airline Pilot." No independent news coverage, campaign website, or civic-board record was found for him in this pass beyond his own filing with the city and county, the same access gap documented for fellow challenger Doug Gonzales.

Strengths

A commercial-aviation career background, distinct from either opponent's -- the only concrete fact this pass could confirm about him.

Trade-offs

No platform, campaign site, or independent record of civic involvement was found anywhere for him; financial info was likewise unavailable.

Keep in mind

As with Gonzales, a thin public profile reflects what could be found in this pass, not a judgment about his candidacy or qualifications.

Source review: Strong (86/100) · 8 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.

Review note: Denise Davis's own campaign site (deniseforredlands.com): her platform in her own words, plus endorsements from State Senator Eloise Gomez Reyes and Congressman Pete Aguilar and her FPPC campaign committee ID (#1484659) may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov (opens in a new tab)San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- statewide "Report_OfficesUpForElection.pdf" (the same document as sb-offices-up-2026 above, a different section): its "City" category lists "City of Redlands, Member, City Council, District 1" / "...District 3" / "...District 5," each "Number to be elected: 1" and "Term (years): 4" -- no Mayor line anywhere for Redlands, and Districts 2 and 4 do not appear
  • uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov (opens in a new tab)San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- statewide "Report_CandidateList.pdf" (the same document as sb-candidate-list-2026 above, a different section): within its "City of Redlands" section (pp. 169-172 of 249), three contests appear, each "Number to be elected: 1" -- District 1 (3 candidates: Denise Davis - Incumbent, Doug Gonzales, Andrew Hoder), District 3 (1 candidate: Mario Saucedo - Incumbent), and District 5 (1 candidate: Paul Barich - Incumbent), each with ballot designations as filed
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- live "Elections" page (redlands.gov/elections/): states the three contested council districts (1, 3, 5), the candidate filing period (July 13 - August 7, 2026), and links both the city's own qualified-candidates document and its Notice of Municipal Election, plus the city's NetFile campaign-disclosure portal
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- "Council Member Candidates Qualified for 11/3/26" (as of 8/7/26): names all five qualified candidates across the city's three November 2026 council districts with phone, email, and their intention-statement, papers-pulled, papers-filed, and qualified-for-ballot dates, in agreement with the county's own candidate-filing report
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- "City Council District Maps" page: confirms the city's 5-district structure and the staggered election cycle -- Districts 2 and 4 elected November 2024, Districts 1, 3, and 5 this November -- with maps for each district adopted March 15, 2022
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- District 1's own official bio page for Council Member Denise Davis: first elected 2018, re-elected 2022, previously Mayor Pro Tempore 2018-2021; her education (University of Redlands, London School of Economics), her higher-education career, and her city commission and regional-agency seats
  • deniseforredlands.com (opens in a new tab)Denise Davis's own campaign site (deniseforredlands.com): her platform in her own words, plus endorsements from State Senator Eloise Gomez Reyes and Congressman Pete Aguilar and her FPPC campaign committee ID (#1484659)
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A documented financial-info gap, not a claim about any candidate's fundraising: the California Secretary of State's CAL-ACCESS filer search was blocked outright by an Incapsula bot wall on every attempt, including a direct fetch of Denise Davis's own filer-detail URL by the FPPC ID her campaign site discloses; the City of Redlands' own local NetFile portal (agency ID RDL) is a JavaScript single-page app with no static content and no discoverable public API endpoint to this session's automated fetchers

Last updated August 31, 2026.