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City of Salinas · Statewide General Election

Salinas Mayor

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 presides over the 7-member Salinas City Council -- the mayor plus six district councilmembers -- and casts a vote like any other member 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. Under the city's charter, this seat serves a 2-year term, half the length of a district council seat.

Four candidates are running for Mayor of Salinas: incumbent Dennis Donohue, retired educator Peter Szalai, tradesman Daniel Muñoz, and student Hezekiah Gonzalez. Whoever gets the most votes wins outright -- there is no primary or runoff.

Salinas is Monterey County's largest city and county seat, with 163,542 residents as of the 2020 Census. Its Mayor presides over the 7-member City Council -- the mayor plus six district councilmembers -- and votes like any other member on the city budget, land use, and policy; an appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations. Under the city's charter, the Mayor's term is 2 years, half the length of a district council seat, so this office is on the ballot every other cycle even when most council seats aren't.

Donohue, who also served as Mayor from 2006 to 2012, was elected to a second, nonconsecutive term in November 2024 after significantly outraising his two opponents. That council has since voted 5-2 in April 2026 to begin rescinding the rent stabilization, just-cause eviction and tenant anti-harassment ordinances a prior council passed in 2023 (a repeal referendum on those ordinances is separately on the November ballot). His three challengers this time are all first-time candidates for citywide office, and each frames the race differently: Szalai centers his campaign on street repair and city spending, Muñoz on an agricultural tax he says would fund infrastructure without new burdens on residents, and Gonzalez on transportation alternatives to cars.

Dennis Donohue

Dennis Donohue is the incumbent, elected to a second, nonconsecutive term as Mayor in November 2024 after first serving from 2006 to 2012. His 2024 campaign centered on housing supply and city efficiency, and his 2026 re-election statement points to expanding affordable rental housing, growing the city's overall housing supply, and using technology to make city services more transparent.

Strengths

A full term of recent experience leading the city, plus an earlier 2006-2012 mayoral term; by far the largest 2024 campaign war chest, over $321,826.

Trade-offs

His council voted 5-2 in April 2026 to rescind rent stabilization and tenant-protection ordinances, Donohue among the majority; a repeal referendum is separately on the ballot.

Keep in mind

Mayor is a 2-year term under the city charter, so whoever wins is back before voters again in 2028 regardless.

Peter Szalai

Peter Szalai is a retired educator with nearly 40 years in public education as a teacher and administrator, including 11 years as president of his local teachers' union; he has also served on the city's Measure E and Measure G tax-oversight committees. His campaign -- summarized as "Fix Our Streets, Spend Responsibly, Earn Back Trust" -- centers on street and sidewalk repair, responsible city spending, and rebuilding public trust in city government, citing a Probolsky Research survey commissioned for the city's own 2026 tax-measure polling that found only 32.8% of residents trust their local government.

Strengths

Decades of public-sector management as a teachers'-union president and city tax-oversight committee member, plus a specific reform list: a public checkbook, town halls in all six districts.

Trade-offs

No prior elected office; as a first-time citywide candidate, his ideas are untested against actually running a city day to day.

Keep in mind

He says his campaign is largely self-financed -- a contrast with Donohue's much larger, business- and agriculture-backed 2024 fundraising.

Daniel Muñoz

Daniel Muñoz, 43, has more than 20 years of experience in construction and lists his ballot designation as "Artist." A regular presence at city council meetings and city events, he frames his campaign as a challenge to what he describes as entrenched local interests. He is the only Mayoral candidate who supports a new agricultural tax, which he says would generate city revenue without an added burden on working families' own taxes, and he opposes the November referendum's repeal of Salinas's 2023 rent-control and tenant-protection ordinances.

Strengths

Two decades of construction experience and regular attendance at city council meetings, giving him direct familiarity with how the council currently operates.

Trade-offs

No prior elected office; his ballot occupation, "Artist," doesn't match the construction background his site and press describe -- a discrepancy this dataset notes, not resolves.

Keep in mind

His signature proposal, a new agricultural tax, would need buy-in from an industry that has funded other recent Salinas council winners.

Hezekiah Gonzalez

Hezekiah Gonzalez is a student and caregiver who had not filed a formal candidate statement as of Monterey County Weekly's late-August report on the race. Campaigning primarily through social media, he says Salinas needs "a third space" and has focused his platform on expanding transportation alternatives to private cars, arguing that residents who can't afford one are left without practical ways to get around the city.

Strengths

A distinct platform focus, transportation access, not centered by any of the other three candidates.

Trade-offs

No filed candidate statement, campaign website, or prior public experience found this pass -- the thinnest record of the four.

Keep in mind

A similarly under-resourced 2024 candidate with a comparable message got roughly 17% of that year's vote against a well-funded incumbent -- context, not a prediction.

Source review: Strong (83/100) · 10 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.

Review note: Daniel Muñoz's own campaign site ("Muñoz For Mayor"): his stated platform (an agricultural tax to fund infrastructure without new burdens on residents, cutting wasteful spending), his self-described 20-plus years of construction experience, his opposition to the November rent-control repeal referendum, and his FPPC committee number (#1490519). and Peter Szalai's own campaign site ("Peter Szalai for Mayor of Salinas 2026 -- Mayor for All"): his stated platform (fix streets, spend responsibly, earn back trust), biography (nearly 40 years in public education, 11 years as local teachers' union president, city Measure E/G tax-oversight committees), his statement that he is largely self-financing his campaign, and his FPPC committee number (#1488922). may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • 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 -- Mayor Dennis Donohue's officeholder page, reached via a Wayback Machine snapshot (captured 2026-08-11; the live page returned HTTP 403 this pass): "Term Began: November 2024 / Term Expires: November 2026", confirming the Mayor's seat is up in November 2026 and that Salinas's Mayor serves a 2-year term
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "Salinas mayor's race set with four candidates ahead of November election": names and profiles all four Mayoral candidates (Donohue, Szalai, Muñoz, Gonzalez), quotes each candidate's own statement, and confirms the Aug. 7, 2026 candidate-filing deadline
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "Big spending led candidates to victory in Salinas' $1.2 million election" (Sara Rubin, Dec. 2024): certified 2024 fundraising totals for Salinas's Nov. 2024 general election, including Mayor-elect Dennis Donohue ($321,826, against Chris Barrera's $82,629 and Ernesto Gonzalez Garcia's $1,782) and District 3's Margaret D'Arrigo ($145,267, more than six times the next-highest fundraiser in that four-candidate race, Cary Swensen) -- the most recent full-cycle fundraising figures found for both
  • 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
  • petersalinasmayor.com (opens in a new tab)Peter Szalai's own campaign site ("Peter Szalai for Mayor of Salinas 2026 -- Mayor for All"): his stated platform (fix streets, spend responsibly, earn back trust), biography (nearly 40 years in public education, 11 years as local teachers' union president, city Measure E/G tax-oversight committees), his statement that he is largely self-financing his campaign, and his FPPC committee number (#1488922)
  • munozforthepeople.com (opens in a new tab)Daniel Muñoz's own campaign site ("Muñoz For Mayor"): his stated platform (an agricultural tax to fund infrastructure without new burdens on residents, cutting wasteful spending), his self-described 20-plus years of construction experience, his opposition to the November rent-control repeal referendum, and his FPPC committee number (#1490519)

Last updated September 1, 2026.