# San Marcos City Council, District 1 Compare records and positions simply between Maria Nunez or Thomas Gabriele for San Marcos City Council, District 1 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on San Marcos's 5-member City Council, alongside the citywide-elected mayor. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of San Marcos - 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-marcos-council-1 - 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: September 7, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 94 out of 100 (Very strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Maria Nunez** — Incumbent - **Thomas Gabriele** A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Maria Nunez faces challenger Thomas Gabriele for San Marcos City Council, District 1. Whichever candidate receives the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there is no runoff. This person holds District 1's seat on San Marcos's 5-member City Council, alongside the citywide-elected mayor. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. District 1 includes the Richmar area of San Marcos. The term is four years. This race was not on the radar as recently as May 2026 -- local news coverage at that point described Nunez as running unopposed for a third term. Gabriele filed their intention paperwork later, before the city's August 7 qualification deadline, making this a genuinely contested race between an incumbent attorney and a first-time candidate who teaches entrepreneurship and economics. ## Maria Nunez Maria Nunez has served on the San Marcos City Council since November 2018 and is seeking a third term. A San Marcos native, they attended Alvin Dunn Elementary (now La Mirada Academy), San Marcos Elementary, San Marcos Middle School, and San Marcos High School (class of 1991), then earned an associate's degree from Palomar College, a bachelor's degree from Cal State San Marcos, and a law degree from California Western School of Law. They are a member of the California Bar and own Nunez Law Corporation, a firm focused on bankruptcy filings and litigation. They are the immediate past president of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association and its scholarship foundation, an advisor to Universidad Popular of San Diego County, and a former board member of MANA de San Diego North County. Their priorities include housing affordability, community safety, infrastructure, and economic opportunity, with a particular focus on working families in District 1 facing housing and food insecurity. **Strengths:** Two full terms in office plus a law practice built around bankruptcy and disputes -- direct, ongoing contact with the kinds of financial pressures Nunez says are their top priority. **Trade-offs:** Eight years in the same seat means voters are largely weighing a continuation of Nunez's existing record rather than a new direction. **Keep in mind:** This dataset did not confirm whether they have a 2026 campaign committee registered with the city -- see Financial info. ## Thomas Gabriele Thomas Gabriele is a first-time candidate for public office. They teach entrepreneurship and economics at Saint Joseph Academy, a private school in San Marcos, and are described by the San Diego Union-Tribune as a technology entrepreneur; the county's candidate list gives their occupation as "Teacher/Business Owner." No campaign website or independent, in-depth news profile of their candidacy or platform was found in this pass. **Strengths:** A classroom career teaching entrepreneurship and economics, plus their own business background, could bring a practically minded lens to city budget and small-business questions. **Trade-offs:** No prior elected or appointed government experience, and this pass found no detailed public statements from them on specific city issues. **Keep in mind:** This dataset did not confirm whether they have a 2026 campaign committee registered with the city -- see Financial info. ## Sources 1. [San Diego County Registrar of Voters -- Candidate List, November 3, 2026 General Election (current through the 8/24/2026 2:44pm snapshot): confirms Mayor, City Council Districts 1 and 3, City Clerk, and City Treasurer as Carlsbad's five November 2026 races, and Mayor plus City Council Districts 1 and 3 as Poway's three November 2026 races, each Vote for 1](https://www.sdvote.com/content/dam/rov/en/election/nov-3-2026-gubernatorial-general-election/candidate-list.pdf) 2. [City of San Marcos -- City Council page: describes the city as "a Charter City governed by a five-member City Council consisting of an elected Mayor and four City Council Members"; carries the sitting officeholders' own official biographies, including Mayor Rebecca Jones's tenure and Council Member Maria Nunez's and Deputy Mayor Mike Sannella's district, first-elected date, and background](https://www.sanmarcosca.gov/City-Government/City-Council) 3. [The Coast News Group (Leo Place) -- "Election 2026: San Marcos City Council": detailed, quoted platform profiles of Sannella, Jenkins, Smith, Matsushita, and Nunez as of mid-May 2026 -- the descriptive backbone of this shard, though it predates Gabriele's District 1 filing and describes Nunez as running unopposed at that point](https://thecoastnews.com/election-2026-san-marcos-city-council/) 4. [The Coast News Group (staff) -- "Election 2026: A guide to North County races": for San Marcos, confirms the final three-race field, including Thomas Gabriele's later filing against Nunez in District 1 -- the correction to the May 2026 "unopposed" reporting; for Vista, corroborates Mayor Franklin's departure and his June 2026 County Supervisor District 5 primary loss, and the District 1/District 4 incumbents-vs-challengers framing, and names two additional mayoral filers, Gabriel Chance and Alexandra Garcia Guzman, not present on the county's own certified, post-deadline qualified candidate list -- treated as filed-but-not-qualified, not part of the November ballot](https://thecoastnews.com/election-2026-a-guide-to-north-county-races/) 5. [San Diego Union-Tribune (Paul Sisson) -- "Jones' supervisor run shakes up San Marcos city elections": confirms Mayor Jones is not seeking a third term because she is running for County Supervisor District 5, opening the mayor's race to Jenkins and Sannella; a search-result excerpt additionally identifies Thomas Gabriele as "an economics teacher at Saint Joseph Academy in San Marcos and technology entrepreneur" -- the article itself sits behind a paywall beyond its opening paragraphs](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/08/21/jones-supervisor-run-shakes-up-san-marcos-city-elections/) 6. [Saint Joseph Academy (San Marcos) -- public faculty roster: lists Thomas Gabriele teaching "Entrepreneurship", independently corroborating the Union-Tribune's description of him as a technology entrepreneur and economics teacher](https://www.sjaclassical.org/faculty) ## The rest of the ballot San Marcos City Council, District 1 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 Marcos City Council, District 1 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-marcos-council-1 (sources last retrieved September 7, 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.