Skip to main content

City of Salinas · Statewide General Election

Salinas City Council, District 5

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 represents one of Salinas's six single-member council districts on the 7-member City Council, alongside a directly elected, at-large Mayor. Councilmembers vote on the city budget, land use, and policy for California's largest Monterey County city and its county seat; day-to-day operations run through an appointed city manager. A 4-year term.

Two candidates are running for Salinas City Council District 5: incumbent Andrew Sandoval and challenger Irma C. Lopez. Whoever gets the most votes wins outright.

District 5 elects one member to a 4-year term on Salinas's 7-member City Council. Sandoval, first elected in November 2022, is one of only two remaining councilmembers -- alongside District 2's Tony Barrera -- who opposed rescinding the city's 2023 rent-control and tenant-protection ordinances when the rest of the council voted to begin doing so in April 2026 (a repeal referendum on those ordinances is separately on the November ballot).

Lopez, a Hartnell College trustee, has outraised Sandoval this cycle: as of the candidates' June 30, 2026 disclosures, Lopez had raised roughly $19,000 and Sandoval about $12,000. Lopez's contributions include former Salinas officials and agricultural interests, among them about $5,900, the maximum allowable, from the Monterey County Business PAC, a group that backed a slate of winning candidates in 2024 who went on to roll back the city's renter protections. Sandoval, separately, faced a council censure vote in January 2026 over social-media posts criticizing colleagues, which he has defended as transparency.

Andrew Sandoval

Andrew Sandoval is the incumbent, first elected to District 5 in November 2022; the county's own candidate filing lists his occupation as "Councilmember/Educational Director." He was one of two dissenting votes -- alongside District 2's Tony Barrera -- when the council voted 5-2 in April 2026 to begin rescinding Salinas's rent-stabilization, just-cause eviction and tenant anti-harassment ordinances, arguing that supporting new housing development and protecting current renters in existing buildings "is not an either/or." Separately, Sandoval faced a possible council censure in January 2026 over social-media posts -- edited clips of public meetings with his own commentary -- that colleagues said violated the council's decorum rules; he did not deny making the posts, defending them as constituent transparency.

Strengths

A completed first term and a consistent voting record on the council's most contested recent issue, renter protections; professional experience as an educational director.

Trade-offs

A January 2026 censure proceeding brought by his own colleagues over social-media conduct; trails his opponent in this cycle's fundraising so far.

Keep in mind

One of just two sitting councilmembers who opposed this year's rollback of Salinas's renter protections.

Irma C. Lopez

Irma C. Lopez is a Hartnell College trustee -- she was the sitting Area 4 trustee as of a contested 2020 election for that seat -- and the county's own candidate filing lists her occupation as "Board Trustee/Educator." As of a June 30, 2026 disclosure reported by Monterey County Weekly, she had raised nearly $19,000 for this race, including contributions from former Salinas councilmember Steve McShane, former Mayor Kimbley Craig, agricultural companies, and about $5,900, the maximum allowable, from the Monterey County Business PAC -- a group that spent heavily backing winning candidates in Salinas's 2024 elections, several of whom later voted to rescind the city's rent-control ordinances.

Strengths

Existing elected-board experience as a Hartnell College trustee; a fundraising lead over the incumbent this cycle, including institutional and business support.

Trade-offs

Her donors -- ag companies and the Business PAC -- mirror the 2024 slate that rolled back renter protections; no independent 2026 platform profile was found beyond fundraising reports.

Keep in mind

Her donor list includes two prior Salinas officials, Steve McShane and Kimbley Craig -- establishment support within recent city government.

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 9 cited sources

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

  • countyofmonterey.gov (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Elections -- official "Candidate List" page for the November 3, 2026 General Election, reached via a Wayback Machine snapshot captured 2026-08-23 (every direct fetch of the live page returned HTTP 403 this pass). Unlike the office-titles-only DOM this dataset's county-level Monterey shard encountered, this snapshot rendered the full per-candidate roster for every office section: for City of Salinas, four candidates for Mayor (Daniel Muñoz, Dennis Donohue, Hezekiah Gonzalez, Peter Szalai), two for Council District 2 (Jose Guerra, Tony Barrera), three for District 3 (Brent Bagley, Cary Swensen, Margaret C. D'Arrigo), and two for District 5 (Andrew Sandoval, Irma C. Lopez), each with ballot-designation occupation and filed contact information, and none marked withdrawn or disqualified
  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)City of Salinas's own official site -- officeholder pages for Districts 1, 4 and 6 (Jose Luis Barajas, Gloria De La Rosa, Aurelio Salazar), reached via Wayback Machine snapshots (captured 2026-08-11): each shows "Term Began: November 2024 / Term Expires: November 2028", confirming none of the three is up in November 2026 -- used to independently verify that exactly four Salinas seats (Mayor, District 2, District 3, District 5) are on the 2026 ballot, not more
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Salinas, California": used for the 2020 Census population (163,542, the largest city and county seat in Monterey County) and to independently corroborate Dennis Donohue as the sitting Mayor and a council-manager government type; its account of the office beyond that is thin and superseded here by the city's own term-of-office pages
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- direct filer searches for all eleven 2026 Salinas candidates (Muñoz, Donohue, Gonzalez, Szalai, Guerra, Barrera, Bagley, Swensen, D'Arrigo, Sandoval, Lopez) each returned only a Distil Networks bot-detection challenge page, not usable search results, both via the name-search form and via a direct committee-detail URL built from an FPPC filer number found on a candidate's own site. Cal-Access's own Power Search page states its data covers state-level campaign finance and excludes local government filings in any case, so this documents an absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these candidates, not a claim about any of their actual finances
  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)City of Salinas's own official site -- Councilmember Andrew Sandoval's District 5 officeholder page, reached via a Wayback Machine snapshot (captured 2026-08-11): "Term Began: November 2022 / Term Expires: November 2026", confirming District 5 is up in November 2026
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "This election year, big money is already flowing" (Sara Rubin, opinion column): reports District 5 candidates' June 30, 2026 campaign-finance disclosures -- Irma Lopez raised nearly $19,000, including the maximum allowable $5,900 from the Monterey County Business PAC, and incumbent Andrew Sandoval raised about $12,000 -- and describes the same Business PAC's spending pattern in Salinas's 2024 elections
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- report on a proposed council censure of District 5's Andrew Sandoval over social-media posts (hearing scheduled Jan. 13, 2026): details the allegations, quotes Sandoval's written response defending the posts as constituent transparency, and quotes colleagues Jose Luis Barajas, Margaret D'Arrigo, Aurelio Salazar and Mayor Donohue on the matter
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "Salinas City Council votes 5-2 in favor of rescinding rent stabilization" (April 2026): on-the-record reporting of the council's vote to begin rescinding the city's 2023 rent-stabilization, just-cause eviction and tenant anti-harassment ordinances, naming Andrew Sandoval and Tony Barrera as the two dissenting votes and quoting Margaret D'Arrigo, Aurelio Salazar, Jose Luis Barajas, Barrera, Sandoval and Mayor Donohue on their positions
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "Fifteen people are vying for trustee seats on the Hartnell and MPC community college boards" (2020): names Irma Cibrian Lopez as the sitting Hartnell College Area 4 trustee that cycle (facing challenger Grant Joel Hill) and Margaret D'Arrigo as a newcomer candidate for a different Hartnell seat (Area 3) -- used only for both women's pre-council-race Hartnell trustee history, not for anything about the 2026 Salinas races

Last updated September 1, 2026.