# Mayor of San Clemente Compare records and positions simply between Shane Hirschman, Kathy Ward, or Victor Cabral for Mayor of San Clemente at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person is San Clemente's Mayor, elected directly by all voters. This is a new office as of 2026. Before that, the title rotated among sitting council members. The Mayor leads City Council meetings and represents the city. The Mayor is one of five members who vote on budget and city laws. Four district council members hold the other four seats. An appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations. The term is two years. - Jurisdiction: City of San Clemente - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-clemente-mayor - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 74 out of 100 (Mixed), across 2 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Shane Hirschman** — Art Director - **Kathy Ward** — Certified Shorthand Reporter - **Victor Cabral** — Councilmember/Attorney/Businessman A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. 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 leads City Council meetings and speaks for the city in public. The Mayor votes as one of five members on the budget and city ordinances. The other four members are district councilmembers. An appointed city manager runs the city day to day. This is a brand new office for 2026. Before this year the Mayor's title rotated among sitting councilmembers. No one was elected to it on its own. The term is two years. Cabral sits on the San Clemente City Council. They are running for the new Mayor's seat instead of reelection to their own seat. Their ballot title and the city's council roster both show this. Ward and Hirschman hold no other city office. Beyond each candidate's filed job, no profile, platform, or news story was found for any of the three. That is a gap in the record, not a guess about them. ## Victor Cabral A sitting San Clemente City Councilmember, per Cabral's own filed ballot designation ("Councilmember/Attorney/Businessman") and confirmed by the city's current council roster. The city's own directory page for them lists only their name, title, and contact information -- no career-history or priorities narrative. No campaign site or news coverage describing their background or platform for this race could be reached in this pass. **Strengths:** Sitting-councilmember experience, so a known quantity to the extent Cabral's prior council votes are on the public record, plus a self-described legal and business background. **Trade-offs:** No independently sourced platform for this campaign -- this dataset only confirms that they currently hold a council seat, not what they have prioritized or intend to as Mayor. **Keep in mind:** CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Kathy Ward Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Certified Shorthand Reporter." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing their 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 Ward's priorities beyond their 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 their candidacy under the ballot designation "Art Director." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing their 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 Hirschman's priorities beyond their 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. ## Review notes - No cited source describes the candidates; add descriptive coverage to lift the cap. ## Sources 1. [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](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [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](https://www.sanclemente.gov/government/city-council) ## The rest of the ballot Mayor of San Clemente is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Mayor of San Clemente — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-clemente-mayor (sources last retrieved August 31, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.