City of San Diego · Statewide General Election
San Diego City Council, District 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
- Martha Abraham — Neonatal ICU Nurse/Mother
- Henry Foster III — Councilmember · Incumbent
This person holds your district's seat on San Diego's 9-member City Council: city laws, the budget, and land use.
Incumbent Henry Foster III faces Martha Abraham, a neonatal ICU nurse, in the runoff for southeast San Diego — City Heights, Encanto, Lincoln Park, a district KPBS describes as historically underserved with a redlining legacy. Both advanced from June's primary (per the city clerk's roster).
The winner holds one of nine seats on the San Diego City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and the land-use decisions behind the district's biggest fights. A four-year term.
The district's defining task is recovery and reinvestment: the January 2024 floods hit here hardest and remain unresolved, and infrastructure gaps predate them by decades (per KPBS). The choice is an incumbent running on delivery against a first-time candidate running on lived proximity to the district's needs.
Henry Foster III
The sitting councilmember and a former District 4 chief of staff. His campaign points to investments in the district's commercial corridors and flood recovery after the January 2024 disaster; he raised about $65,000 with county- and state-level endorsements (per KPBS).
Strengths
Incumbency plus years of district staff work before it — the deepest institutional knowledge of District 4's files in the race (per KPBS).
Trade-offs
He owns the recovery record he runs on; voters still living with unresolved flood damage may read "progress" differently than City Hall does.
Keep in mind
Establishment backing (county and state endorsers, per KPBS) cuts both ways in a district whose story is being underserved by institutions.
Martha Abraham
A neonatal intensive-care nurse (her ballot designation adds "mother"), one of the challengers KPBS lists against the incumbent in a district focused on flood recovery, infrastructure, and affordability.
Strengths
A frontline healthcare profile in a district whose crises — floods, pollution, underinvestment — land hardest on public health.
Trade-offs
No documented government or elected service record in the race's press coverage; her platform's specifics are thinner on the record than the incumbent's.
Keep in mind
Making the runoff against a sitting councilmember is itself a signal of district appetite for change; her campaign materials carry the specifics this entry cannot yet cite.
Source review: Very strong (95/100) · 2 cited sources
Official records anchor this contest, with a narrow source base.
- sandiego.gov (opens in a new tab)San Diego City Clerk — 2026 election information (November runoff rosters)
- kpbs.org (opens in a new tab)KPBS — San Diego City Council races explainer, Districts 2, 4, 6, 8 (Apr 30, 2026)
Last updated August 22, 2026.