# San Mateo City Council, District 5 Compare records and positions simply between Dave Johnson, Adam Loraine, or Dana Yates Sahae for San Mateo City Council, District 5 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would represent one of San Mateo's five council districts. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land-use decisions. San Mateo has about 105,600 residents. The term is four years. The council picks its own Mayor and Deputy Mayor each year. They are not elected separately. - Jurisdiction: City of San Mateo - 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-mateo-city-council-5 - 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 1, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 82 out of 100 (Strong), across 9 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Dave Johnson** — Pastor / Coach - **Adam Loraine** — Incumbent - **Dana Yates Sahae** — Community Advocate / Parent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Sitting Mayor Adam Loraine seeks a second term representing District 5 against two challengers: pastor and Hillsdale High School golf coach Dave Johnson, and former reporter Dana Yates Sahae. The winner serves a 4-year term on San Mateo's City Council. It is one of five district seats. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this city of about 105,600 residents. San Mateo moved from at-large to district elections in 2022. The Mayor and Deputy Mayor are not elected separately. The council chooses them from among its own members each year. Council races have no primary. All three candidates go straight to the November 3 ballot. Loraine is a lifelong San Mateo resident. They previously served on the city's Sustainability and Infrastructure Commission. They center their campaign on public safety, infrastructure, downtown revitalization, and environmental sustainability. Johnson is a native San Matean and Senior Pastor at FBC San Carlos. They also coach golf at Hillsdale High School. They frame their campaign around fiscal transparency, public safety, and a lighter regulatory touch for local business. Sahae, a former reporter, centers their campaign on economic accountability, public-safety staffing, and infrastructure maintenance. Per their own campaign site, they have by far the broadest endorsement list of the three. It includes two sitting county supervisors, a retired state senator, and a retired police chief. It also includes three of Loraine's own council colleagues. They are Danielle Cwirko-Godycki and two candidates on this same ballot in their own races. Those two are Lisa Diaz Nash in District 1 and Rob Newsom Jr. in District 3. No campaign material was found in which Diaz Nash or Newsom endorses Loraine's reelection. ## Adam Loraine Loraine is a lifelong San Mateo resident who attended Aragon High School and College of San Mateo. Before their council term they served on the city's Sustainability and Infrastructure Commission, where they say they helped shape the city's 20-year policy vision. They say their family lost their home during the Great Recession and that experience shaped their decision to stay and serve the community. **Strengths:** A full term of council experience including service as Mayor, plus prior appointed commission service before joining the council. **Trade-offs:** As the incumbent, they carry the most direct accountability for the current council's record, and their site lists no endorsements from sitting colleagues. **Keep in mind:** All three District 5 candidates cite public safety and infrastructure as priorities -- distinguishing them means weighing their specific records and backers, not just shared talking points. ## Dave Johnson Johnson was born and raised in San Mateo's 94403 ZIP code, attending Meadow Heights Elementary, Abbott Middle School, Hillsdale High School, and College of San Mateo. They worked as a paramedic with San Mateo County from 2000 to 2008, co-founded Hope Church of San Mateo in 2010, and managed shelter and recovery operations at CityTeam International in Oakland before it merged with Hope Church in 2015; they now serve as Senior Pastor at FBC San Carlos and coach golf at Hillsdale High School. **Strengths:** Deep, decades-long roots in the district and a first-responder background (eight years as a county paramedic) directly relevant to their public-safety platform. **Trade-offs:** No prior appointed or elected city government service. **Keep in mind:** Their endorsement list leans personal and faith-community (a family friendship with Tom and Galynn Brady, a fellow pastor, former paramedic colleagues) rather than sitting elected officials -- a different kind of backing than either of their opponents. ## Dana Yates Sahae Yates Sahae is a former reporter who says their journalism background trained them to ask good questions before making decisions. Their site gives no further detail on their current occupation, age, or specific years of San Mateo residency. **Strengths:** By far the broadest institutional endorsement list of the three -- two county supervisors, a retired state senator, a police chief, three councilmembers, and three former mayors, per their own site. **Trade-offs:** No prior appointed or elected city government service, and their site gives little biographical detail beyond their journalism background. **Keep in mind:** Three of their listed endorsers -- Cwirko-Godycki, Diaz Nash, and Newsom Jr. -- are Loraine's own sitting colleagues; this dataset found no campaign material where Diaz Nash or Newsom endorses Loraine's reelection. ## Review notes - Dave Johnson's own campaign site (johnsonforsanmateo.com): describes him as a native San Matean (94403) educated at Meadow Heights Elementary, Abbott Middle School, Hillsdale High School, and College of San Mateo; a San Mateo County paramedic from 2000 to 2008; co-founder of Hope Church of San Mateo (2010); a former Rescue Mission Manager at CityTeam International in Oakland; now Senior Pastor at FBC San Carlos and a golf coach at Hillsdale High School; publishes FPPC ID 1491065, Adam Loraine's own campaign site (adamloraine.com): describes him as a lifelong San Mateo resident (Aragon High School, College of San Mateo), the sitting Mayor and District 5 councilmember, a former Sustainability and Infrastructure Commissioner, and recounts his family losing their home during the Great Recession; platform (public safety/retail theft, infrastructure, downtown revitalization, environmental sustainability, housing, civil rights); footer publishes FPPC ID 1487496, and Dana Yates Sahae's own campaign site (danaforsanmateo.com): describes her as a former reporter; platform (economic accountability, public safety staffing, infrastructure maintenance, responsible housing/growth, responsive government); endorsements page names county supervisors Jackie Speier and Ray Mueller, retired state senator Jerry Hill, retired police chief Susan Manheimer, sitting councilmembers Danielle Cwirko-Godycki, Lisa Diaz Nash, and Rob Newsom Jr., three former mayors, the San Mateo Police Officers Association, and the San Mateo County Association of Realtors; publishes FPPC ID 1485426 may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources. ## Sources 1. [San Mateo County ACRE -- Roster of Candidates, Qualified Candidates Only, November 3, 2026 General Election (CFMR009), dated 2026-08-25: the county's own certified candidate list, naming all seven qualified City of San Mateo City Council candidates across Districts 1, 3, and 5, their filed occupations/ballot designations, and qualification dates, each flagged 'On Ballot: Yes, Vote for 1'](https://smcacre.gov/system/files/2026-08/52_candidateroster0825.pdf) 2. [City of San Mateo -- official '2026 City Council Candidates' page (cityofsanmateo.org/4305): lists all seven qualified candidates for Districts 1, 3, and 5 in the order set by the county and Secretary of State's August 13, 2026 randomized-alphabet drawing, and confirms the November 3, 2026 election date](https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4305) 3. [City of San Mateo -- official 'Meet Your Council' page: names Adam Loraine (District 5) as Mayor, Nicole Fernandez (District 2) as Deputy Mayor, and Lisa Diaz Nash (District 1), Danielle Cwirko-Godycki (District 4), and Rob Newsom Jr. (District 3) as the remaining council members](https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/166/Meet-Your-Council) 4. [City of San Mateo -- official 'District Elections' page: the city moved from at-large to five City Council districts starting in November 2022; Districts 1, 3, and 5 were elected in November 2022 and are up again in November 2026, while Districts 2 and 4 were elected in November 2024; council members must live in the district they represent](https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4537/District-Elections) 5. [Wikipedia's San Mateo, California article -- confirms the council-manager government structure, the five-member City Council's staggered four-year terms, and the city's population (105,661 at the 2020 census; a 103,337 Census Bureau estimate as of July 1, 2025)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Mateo,_California) 6. [This dataset's own documented record of a dedicated, unsuccessful attempt to retrieve campaign-finance filings for all seven City of San Mateo City Council candidates: California's Cal-Access filer search (cal-access.sos.ca.gov) returned only an Incapsula bot-detection interstitial for every query attempted this session (via both WebFetch and direct curl), with no live browser session available in this worktree to work around it. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these seven candidates, not any of their actual finances.](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/) 7. [Adam Loraine's own campaign site (adamloraine.com): describes him as a lifelong San Mateo resident (Aragon High School, College of San Mateo), the sitting Mayor and District 5 councilmember, a former Sustainability and Infrastructure Commissioner, and recounts his family losing their home during the Great Recession; platform (public safety/retail theft, infrastructure, downtown revitalization, environmental sustainability, housing, civil rights); footer publishes FPPC ID 1487496](https://www.adamloraine.com) 8. [Dave Johnson's own campaign site (johnsonforsanmateo.com): describes him as a native San Matean (94403) educated at Meadow Heights Elementary, Abbott Middle School, Hillsdale High School, and College of San Mateo; a San Mateo County paramedic from 2000 to 2008; co-founder of Hope Church of San Mateo (2010); a former Rescue Mission Manager at CityTeam International in Oakland; now Senior Pastor at FBC San Carlos and a golf coach at Hillsdale High School; publishes FPPC ID 1491065](https://johnsonforsanmateo.com) 9. [Dana Yates Sahae's own campaign site (danaforsanmateo.com): describes her as a former reporter; platform (economic accountability, public safety staffing, infrastructure maintenance, responsible housing/growth, responsive government); endorsements page names county supervisors Jackie Speier and Ray Mueller, retired state senator Jerry Hill, retired police chief Susan Manheimer, sitting councilmembers Danielle Cwirko-Godycki, Lisa Diaz Nash, and Rob Newsom Jr., three former mayors, the San Mateo Police Officers Association, and the San Mateo County Association of Realtors; publishes FPPC ID 1485426](https://danaforsanmateo.com) ## The rest of the ballot San Mateo City Council, District 5 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 Mateo City Council, District 5 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-mateo-city-council-5 (sources last retrieved September 1, 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.