City of San Clemente · Statewide General Election
Mayor of San Clemente
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
- Shane Hirschman — Art Director
- Kathy Ward — Certified Shorthand Reporter
- Victor Cabral — Councilmember/Attorney/Businessman
This person is San Clemente's directly-elected, citywide Mayor -- a brand-new office as of 2026 (before this year the title rotated among sitting councilmembers). The Mayor presides over City Council meetings and represents the city publicly, but votes as one of five members (the Mayor plus four district councilmembers) on the budget and city ordinances, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. A 2-year term.
Victor Cabral, Kathy Ward, and Shane Hirschman are running for San Clemente's first-ever directly elected Mayor. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff.
San Clemente's Mayor presides over City Council meetings and represents the city publicly, but votes as one of five members (the Mayor plus four district councilmembers) on the budget and city ordinances, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. This is a brand-new office for 2026 -- before this year the Mayor's title rotated among sitting councilmembers rather than being separately elected. A 2-year term.
Cabral is a sitting San Clemente councilmember running for the new Mayor's seat rather than re-election to his own council seat, per his own ballot designation and the city's council roster page. Ward and Hirschman hold no other city office found in this dataset's research. Beyond each candidate's filed occupation, no independent profile, platform statement, or news coverage was found for any of the three in this pass despite a real, time-boxed search effort -- documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation.
Victor Cabral
A sitting San Clemente City Councilmember, per his own filed ballot designation ("Councilmember/Attorney/Businessman") and confirmed by the city's current council roster. The city's own directory page for him lists only his name, title, and contact information -- no career-history or priorities narrative. No campaign site or news coverage describing his background or platform for this race could be reached in this pass.
Strengths
Sitting-councilmember experience, so a known quantity to the extent his prior council votes are on the public record, plus a self-described legal and business background.
Trade-offs
No independently sourced platform for this specific campaign -- this dataset only confirms that he currently holds a council seat, not what he has prioritized in it or intends to next term as Mayor.
Keep in mind
CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info.
Kathy Ward
Filed her candidacy under the ballot designation "Certified Shorthand Reporter." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing her background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.
Strengths
A professional background in court reporting suggests close familiarity with formal proceedings and public record-keeping.
Trade-offs
No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of her priorities beyond her listed occupation, and no record of prior office was found.
Keep in mind
CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info.
Shane Hirschman
Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Art Director." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.
Strengths
An early filer (Declaration of Candidacy filed 7/29/2026, ahead of both opponents), which at minimum signals an established campaign timeline.
Trade-offs
No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed occupation, and no record of prior office was found.
Keep in mind
CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info.
Source review: Mixed (74/100) · 2 cited sources
Only procedural records are cited (candidate lists, results, finance filings); no source describes the candidates, so the score is capped.
Review note: No cited source describes the candidates; add descriptive coverage to lift the cap.
- ocvote.gov (opens in a new tab)OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of San Clemente section (pages 145-148 of 188, downloaded directly and parsed locally with pypdf since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Mayor (3 qualified candidates), Member City Council District 1 (3), and Member City Council District 2 (2) as the city's three November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags (blank for Mayor and District 2; "No Incumbent Appointed to Vacancy" for District 1) and every candidate's filed ballot designation
- sanclemente.gov (opens in a new tab)City of San Clemente -- City Council page: confirms the sitting 5-member body (Mayor Rick Loeffler; Steve Knoblock, Mayor Pro Tem; Victor Cabral; Mark Enmeier; Zhen Wu), that the city established four council districts in November 2024 on four-year terms, and that the Mayor is newly directly elected at-large for a two-year term beginning in 2026
Last updated August 31, 2026.