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City of San Ramon · Statewide General Election

San Ramon 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

This person would hold one of San Ramon's four district-elected City Council seats, alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor, on a 5-member council with an appointed City Manager who runs day-to-day operations: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for a city of about 84,600 residents (2020 census). A 4-year term, decided by whichever candidate gets the most votes -- no ranked-choice voting is documented for San Ramon.

Incumbent Vice Mayor Marisol Rubio faces first-time candidate Jeffrey Joh for the District 4 City Council seat.

This person would hold one of San Ramon's four district-elected City Council seats, alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor, on a 5-member council with an appointed City Manager who runs day-to-day operations: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for a city of about 84,600 residents (2020 census). A 4-year term, decided by whichever candidate gets the most votes -- no ranked-choice voting is documented for San Ramon.

District 4 pairs an incumbent finishing her first full council term -- with a 2022 election win and a 2024 run for higher office on her record -- against a first-time candidate with no prior campaign or public record beyond one committee application this cycle. The two candidates' public track records differ sharply in length.

A third prospective candidate, Nick Harvey, pulled nomination papers for District 4 but never qualified for the ballot, per DanvilleSanRamon's filing-deadline reporting. San Ramon's City Council set this year's voluntary campaign-expenditure limit for District 4 at $36,597 (about $2.75 per registered voter), up slightly from the 2024 cap -- council members noted actual spending in recent city elections has generally run well below either limit.

Marisol Rubio

The incumbent Vice Mayor, seeking her first full reelection to District 4; her filed ballot designation is "Councilwoman/In-Home Provider." Rubio previously served as a Director and Vice President of the Dublin San Ramon Services District before winning a decisive 2022 election to San Ramon's District 4 council seat over Heidi Kenniston-Lee. In 2024 she ran unsuccessfully for State Senate, losing to Tim Grayson. A UC Berkeley graduate in Molecular and Cell Biology and a former bilingual science teacher, Rubio is the parent of a childhood brain-cancer survivor and has an extensive local volunteer record in disability rights, reproductive health, and environmental advocacy, including work with the Sierra Club's San Francisco Bay Chapter. On the council she has championed the city's new Sustainability Advisory Committee and was a vocal supporter of the city's Pride Flag display policy in 2026.

Strengths

a full term on the council plus prior special-district board experience, and a deep, well-documented record of local and regional volunteer advocacy.

Trade-offs

her 2024 State Senate run means part of her term went to campaigning for a different office; no independent reporting scrutinizing her council record was found beyond routine coverage.

Keep in mind

no confirmed 2026 campaign-finance figures are on file here -- DanvilleSanRamon reported her campaign was still in an "early fundraising phase" with no official website as of July 28, 2026, and no CAL-ACCESS or city disclosure filing was found for her in this pass.

Jeffrey Joh

A first-time candidate; his filed ballot designation is "Technology Strategist." Beyond that county filing, the only independent, dated detail this dataset located is an Aug. 30, 2026 DanvilleSanRamon article naming Joh -- identified there as "a city council candidate challenging District 4 councilmember Marisol Rubio" -- as one of two applicants for a seat on the Contra Costa Transportation Authority's Citizens Advisory Committee. This dataset searched the city's own site, Ballotpedia, Wikipedia, and DanvilleSanRamon's own site search for a campaign website or further biographical detail and found nothing more.

Strengths

not established in the sourcing found for this race, beyond an application for a county transportation advisory-committee seat.

Trade-offs

as a first-time candidate with no located campaign site or news profile, voters have little beyond his name, his self-declared occupation, and that single advisory-committee application to go on.

Keep in mind

this is a documented sourcing gap, not evidence against him -- a real, multi-method search (the city's own site, Ballotpedia, Wikipedia, and local news) turned up nothing further to report.

Source review: Very strong (92/100) · 11 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Positions Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": the only county-section contest in the document is County Board of Education Areas 2, 4, and 5 (under Schools) -- no Board of Supervisors, row office, or Superior Court seat appears anywhere, consistent with both Supervisor seats up this cycle (Districts 1 and 4) having been decided outright in the June 2026 primary
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (8-27-26_candidatelist_detail_final.pdf), the county's post-certification ballot-order-proofing export: shows Area 2 as a 3-candidate contest (Sarah Butler, incumbent; Pamela West; Sibyl Minighini) with each candidate's filed ballot designation and qualification date -- this export omits single-filer contests entirely, which is why Areas 4 and 5 do not appear in it (see cc-candidate-summary-2026)
  • contracostavote.gov (opens in a new tab)Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Candidate List" (8-14-26_candidatelist_summary_final.pdf), the county's complete qualified-candidate roster including single-filer contests: confirms Area 2 (Sarah Butler, Pamela West, Sibyl Minighini), Area 4 (Mike Maxwell, sole qualified candidate), and Area 5 (Clyde Henry Lewis, Jr., sole qualified candidate)
  • sanramon.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of San Ramon — City Clerk's Elections page: confirms the Nov. 3, 2026 local election date and vote-by-mail logistics; the city's own City Council roster page (read the same session) names the sitting 5-member council — Mayor Mark Armstrong, Vice Mayor Marisol Rubio, and Councilmembers Robert Jweinat, Richard Adler, and Sridhar Verose.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's San Ramon, California article — 2020 census population 84,605; incorporated July 1, 1983.
  • danvillesanramon.com (opens in a new tab)DanvilleSanRamon — "San Ramon Valley candidates finalized for November ballot" (2026-08-14): confirms the final San Ramon Valley-wide candidate roster after the non-incumbent filing extension closed, with no further changes to the three San Ramon city races.
  • sanramon.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of San Ramon — Vice Mayor Marisol Rubio's official City Council bio page: a former Dublin San Ramon Services District board Director/Vice President elected to San Ramon council District 4 on Nov. 8, 2022; UC Berkeley graduate in Molecular and Cell Biology; extensive volunteer record in disability rights, environmental, and reproductive-health advocacy.
  • danvillesanramon.com (opens in a new tab)DanvilleSanRamon — "Rubio running for second term on San Ramon City Council" (2026-07-28): Rubio's campaign announcement, her 2022 win over Heidi Kenniston-Lee, her unsuccessful 2024 State Senate run against Tim Grayson, and confirmation that as of this article her campaign remained in an early fundraising phase with no official website yet available.
  • danvillesanramon.com (opens in a new tab)DanvilleSanRamon (Embarcadero Media) — "Contested elections for San Ramon, Danville councils; one SRVUSD incumbent faces challenge" (2026-08-07): the county filing-deadline roundup naming all three San Ramon city races as contested — Armstrong vs. Ntatsos vs. Chigbu for Mayor, Adler vs. Kathrani for District 2, Rubio vs. Joh for District 4 — and noting a fourth mayoral prospect (Brian Swanson) and a third District 4 prospect (Nick Harvey) each pulled papers but did not qualify.
  • danvillesanramon.com (opens in a new tab)DanvilleSanRamon — "San Ramon council set for advisory body appointments" (2026-08-30): names Jeffrey Joh, identified as "a city council candidate challenging District 4 councilmember Marisol Rubio," as one of two applicants for a Contra Costa Transportation Authority citizens'-advisory-committee seat — independent, dated corroboration of civic engagement beyond the county's own filing record.
  • danvillesanramon.com (opens in a new tab)DanvilleSanRamon — "San Ramon council raises campaign expenditure limits for upcoming general election" (2026-06-15): the city council's June 9, 2026 vote setting this cycle's voluntary campaign-expenditure limits at $91,453 for Mayor and $39,938 / $36,597 for Council Districts 2 and 4 respectively — the ceiling, not a report of what any 2026 candidate actually raised.

Last updated September 1, 2026.