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City of Riverside · Statewide General Election

Riverside City Council, Ward 4

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 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.

Incumbent Chuck Conder came close to an outright majority in June (45.6%) but fell just short, so he faces runner-up Rich Vandenberg (28.3%) in this runoff; both beat out third-place finisher Jessica Qattawi (26.0%). Whoever wins takes a 4-year term.

This person holds Ward 4'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.

Three candidates ran in the June 2, 2026 primary (13,074 total votes): Conder and Vandenberg advanced; Jessica Qattawi (26.0%) 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.

Chuck Conder

Chuck Conder -- whose own Ballotpedia page and prior city record use the fuller "Charles Conder Jr.," though the county's certified results print the ballot name "Chuck Conder" -- is the sitting Ward 4 councilmember, seeking reelection after coming within about 4.4 points of an outright June majority. Per Ballotpedia, he served in the U.S. Air Force from 1978 to his retirement at the rank of major in 1998, and became an assistant to then-Councilman Chris Mac Arthur in 2007.

Strengths

The sitting incumbent, closest of either Riverside runoff candidate to an outright June majority (45.6%); a documented Air Force career and prior council-aide experience.

Trade-offs

No independent reporting on his actual record in the Ward 4 seat was found -- sourcing here is Ballotpedia's biography and certified election records, not independent journalism on his time in office.

Keep in mind

A strong primary finish and public-service background, but this dataset could not independently verify his record once in office.

Rich Vandenberg

Rich Vandenberg finished second in June with 28.3% of the vote (3,705 votes), edging out Jessica Qattawi by about 2.3 points for the second runoff spot. No independent biography, occupation, or platform statement was found for him.

Strengths

Advanced to the runoff by a real but not overwhelming margin over the third-place finisher.

Trade-offs

No independent biography, occupation, or platform was found beyond the certified vote count -- a real search of local news, search engines, and his own Ballotpedia stub page turned up nothing further.

Keep in mind

With no public record of his priorities beyond the primary result, this is a vote based on the ballot itself, not a documented record.

June 2 primary — how they advanced

Chuck Conder45.63% · 5,966 votes
Rich Vandenberg28.34% · 3,705 votes
Jessica Qattawi26.03% · 3,403 votes
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/officeholder page for Charles Conder Jr. (Riverside City Council Ward 4, incumbent, 2026): a short biography section states he "served in the U.S. Air Force from 1978 to his retirement at the rank of major in 1998," and "became the assistant to Councilman Chris Mac Arthur in 2007." The county's own certified results print his ballot name as "CHUCK CONDER"; this page uses the fuller "Charles Conder Jr."

Last updated August 31, 2026.