# San Diego City Council, District 8 Compare records and positions simply between Gerardo Ramirez or Antonio Martinez for San Diego City Council, District 8 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on San Diego's 9-member City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. - Jurisdiction: City of San Diego - 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-diego-council-8 - 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: October 6, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 95 out of 100 (Very strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Gerardo Ramirez** — Chief of Staff, District 8 - **Antonio Martinez** — Governing Board Member, San Ysidro School District A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Antonio Martinez and Gerardo Ramirez advanced from a four-Democrat June field for an open South Bay seat (per KPBS and the city clerk's roster). The district covers Southcrest, Sherman Heights and San Ysidro. KPBS describes it as facing unresolved January 2024 flood damage and cross-border sewage pollution. The winner holds one of nine seats on the San Diego City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and the land-use decisions behind the district's biggest fights. The term is four years. Both finalists are Democrats, so the choice is not partisan but positional: a school-board member running on infrastructure investment versus the district office's own chief of staff running on continuity. The district's crises — flood recovery, the Tijuana River pollution emergency, a legacy of underinvestment (per KPBS) — will consume whoever wins. ## Antonio Martinez A San Ysidro School District board member and former congressional staffer. His campaign stresses infrastructure investment after the January 2024 floods; he raised about $10,000 in the primary (per KPBS). In his Vote411 questionnaire he describes service on the San Ysidro School Board since 2012, eleven years as a director at Nestor Community Health Center, and work as a community representative for Congressmember Juan Vargas. He also lists local roles on the San Ysidro Recreation Council and Planning Group. By his own account, student achievement is up during his tenure and the district was the first in the country to commit to electric school buses. His three stated priorities are a fair share of resources for District 8, economic justice for working people, and children's futures. The first means jobs, street repair and public safety. The second means higher living and prevailing wages, project labor agreements and support for public employees. The third means after-school programs, resources for at-risk youth and school-district partnerships. On the Tijuana River sewage crisis he says he would seek emergency federal, state and local funding and build a binational long-term solution, and he describes an air-quality study he is doing with Casa Familiar in San Ysidro. **Strengths:** The field's only elected-office record, a San Ysidro school board seat since 2012, plus health-center and congressional-office experience, by his own account. **Trade-offs:** The smallest reported primary fundraising among the leading candidates (per KPBS), against an opponent with the district office's network. **Keep in mind:** School-board governance is smaller in scale than the council's flood-and-pollution portfolio, and the results he cites, such as rising student achievement, are his own account. ## Gerardo Ramirez The sitting District 8 chief of staff. KPBS's explainer noted little public platform detail from his campaign; his primary raised about $21,000, and an independent committee funded by SDG&E and Phillips 66 spent roughly $100,000 more in the race — money that is not his campaign's (per KPBS). **Strengths:** Day-one command of the district office's active files, since he runs the office now, in a seat where continuity has real value mid-crisis. **Trade-offs:** KPBS found little stated platform to evaluate; voters are asked to infer his agenda from the office he staffs. **Keep in mind:** The roughly $100,000 in independent utility- and oil-funded spending that supported his primary (per KPBS) is not his money and not his doing, but whom it chose to help is information. ## Sources 1. [San Diego City Clerk — 2026 election information (November runoff rosters)](https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/elections/city/electioninfo) 2. [San Diego County Registrar of Voters — certified June 2, 2026 results](https://sdvote.com/results) 3. [KPBS — San Diego City Council races explainer, Districts 2, 4, 6, 8 (Apr 30, 2026)](https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/04/30/2026-primary-election-san-diego-city-council-races-explainer-districts-2-4-6-8) 4. [City of San Diego eFile — public campaign-disclosure search](https://efile.sandiego.gov/public/search/campaign/by-name) 5. [League of Women Voters -- Vote411 voter guide, 'City of San Diego City Council Member, District 8' race (statewide All Races list): each candidate's self-submitted ballot designation and campaign contacts, plus answers to the League's questions -- top three priorities, qualifying background, climate-change actions, and a long-term challenge. Answers on file from Antonio Martinez. Capture in data/nov-2026/sources/vote411/san-diego-council-8.json.](https://www.vote411.org/plan-your-vote) ## The rest of the ballot San Diego City Council, District 8 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, "San Diego City Council, District 8 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-diego-council-8 (sources last retrieved October 6, 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.