City of Riverside · Statewide General Election
Riverside City Council, Ward 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
- Aram Ayra
- Gracie Torres
This person holds your ward's seat on Riverside's City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Inland Empire city of about 315,000. Riverside is a charter city with council-manager government -- an appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations under the council's policy direction. The 8-member council seats 7 ward-elected councilmembers plus a separately, citywide-elected Mayor, who presides over meetings but does not vote. All seats serve 4-year terms, staggered so Wards 2, 4, and 6 are elected together and the Mayor plus Wards 1, 3, 5, 7 are elected together on the opposite two-year offset (next up March 2028). Riverside elects by majority vote: a candidate who tops 50% in the spring primary wins outright, as Ward 6 did this cycle; short of that, the top two meet again in a November runoff, as here.
No one topped 50% in Riverside's Ward 2 primary, so the top two meet again here: Gracie Torres (38.0% in June) faces Aram Ayra (35.7%) for this open seat. Outgoing Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes did not run again. Whoever wins takes a 4-year term on the City Council.
This person holds Ward 2's seat on Riverside's 8-member City Council (7 ward members plus a separately elected, non-voting Mayor): city ordinances, the budget, and land use for a charter city of about 315,000 with council-manager government. Riverside elects by majority vote -- a candidate who tops 50% in the spring primary wins outright, as Ward 6 did this cycle -- and sends the top two to a November runoff otherwise, as here.
Four candidates ran in the June 2, 2026 primary for this open seat (8,020 total votes): Torres and Ayra advanced; Mike Vahl (22.5%) and Christen Montero (3.7%) did not. Riverside's Mayor and City Council Wards 1, 3, 5, and 7 are on a separate cycle and are not on this ballot -- they are next up in March 2028.
Gracie Torres
Gracie Torres led the June primary field with 38.0% of the vote (3,047 votes) in this open-seat, four-way race. No independent biography, occupation, or platform statement was found for her beyond the county's certified election record.
Strengths
Led the June primary field outright, ahead of the eventual runoff opponent by more than 2 points.
Trade-offs
No independent biography, occupation, or platform was found beyond the certified vote count -- a real search of local news, search engines, and her own Ballotpedia stub page turned up nothing further.
Keep in mind
With no public record of her priorities beyond the primary result, this is a vote based on the ballot itself, not a documented record.
Aram Ayra
Aram Ayra finished a close second in June with 35.7% of the vote (2,865 votes). Per Ballotpedia, he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Riverside in 2018. No other independent biography or platform statement was found.
Strengths
Finished a close second in a four-way primary field, within 2.3 points of first place; a confirmed UC Riverside degree (2018).
Trade-offs
Beyond that one biographical fact, no independent reporting, occupation detail, or stated platform was found for him in this pass.
Keep in mind
A thin public record beyond his primary showing and one credential -- weigh the vote count itself alongside what little is documented.
June 2 primary — how they advanced
Source review: Strong (89/100) · 5 cited sources
Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.
- riversideca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Riverside City Clerk -- "Elections" page: states directly that the Nov. 3, 2026 General Municipal Runoff Election is for City Council Wards 2 and 4 only ("no candidate received a majority of the vote in either ward during the June 2, 2026 Primary Election"; Ward 6 was decided in the primary), and that the city's next General Municipal Election -- Mayor plus Wards 1, 3, 5, 7 -- is not until March 7, 2028. Links the county's certified June 2, 2026 results PDF and the city's own Laserfiche-hosted candidate-statement PDF (the latter returned only a "cookies not enabled" error on every retrieval attempt in this pass).
- voteinfo.net (opens in a new tab)Riverside County Registrar of Voters -- "Election Summary Report, Final Certified Election Results" for the June 2, 2026 Statewide Direct Primary Election (the same PDF the City of Riverside's own Elections page links as its "Certified June 2, 2026 Election Results"): gives, by raw vote and percent, Riverside City Council Ward 2 (Torres 3,047/37.99%, Ayra 2,865/35.72%, Vahl 1,808/22.54%, Montero 300/3.74%; 8,020 total), Ward 4 (Conder 5,966/45.63%, Vandenberg 3,705/28.34%, Qattawi 3,403/26.03%; 13,074 total), and Ward 6 (Hernandez 2,657/50.29% -- an outright majority, no runoff -- Puerta 28.26%, Berrellez 21.45%; 5,283 total). This section of the PDF carries the same contest-header/candidate-block shift bug already documented elsewhere in this dataset (see sources/riverside-candidates-nov2026.txt): the printed headers "Treasurer-Tax Collector" and "Riverside City Council Ward 2" each sit one candidate-block early, over the Ward 2 and Ward 4 blocks respectively, rather than their own. Candidate-to-ward assignment here relies on Ballotpedia's independently labeled results tables (below), which match these exact names and vote totals under the correct ward header, not on this PDF's own (mis)placed headers.
- ballotpedia.org (opens in a new tab)Ballotpedia -- "Riverside, California": city-government reference page confirming Riverside is a charter city with council-manager government, an 8-member council (7 ward-elected members plus a citywide-elected, non-voting Mayor), sourced to the Riverside City Charter and Code via Municode; also carries the current officeholder table used to confirm Ward 2 (Clarissa Cervantes, term ending 2026) and Ward 4 (Charles Conder Jr., term ending 2026) had no incumbent listed past this cycle, that Ward 6's Luis Hernandez assumed office July 7, 2026 (an outright June win, no runoff), and that Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson (in office since 2020) is not up again until 2028.
- ballotpedia.org (opens in a new tab)Ballotpedia -- "City elections in Riverside, California (2026)": dedicated election page with certified June 2, 2026 general-election and Nov. 3, 2026 runoff voteboxes for each ward. Ward 2: "Gracie Torres and Aram Ayra advanced to a runoff. They defeated Mike Vahl and Christen Montero" (same vote totals as the county PDF, under the correct label). Ward 4: "Incumbent Charles Conder Jr. and Rich Vandenberg advanced to a runoff. They defeated Jessica Qattawi." Ward 6: "Luis Hernandez defeated Oz Puerta and Norma Berrellez" outright, no runoff. Also states the citywide filing deadline was March 6, 2026 and that this is a nonpartisan election.
- ballotpedia.org (opens in a new tab)Ballotpedia -- candidate page for Aram Ayra (Riverside City Council Ward 2, 2026): a short biography section states he "earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Riverside in 2018." No campaign-website or platform content is present on the page.
Last updated August 31, 2026.