# Santa Ana City Council, Ward 2 Compare records and positions simply between Selica Diaz or Benjamin Vazquez for Santa Ana City Council, Ward 2 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your ward's seat on Santa Ana's 6-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside the citywide-elected Mayor and an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Not all six wards are elected the same year -- only Wards 2, 4, and 6 have terms expiring in 2026. The term is four years, limited to three terms. - Jurisdiction: City of Santa Ana - 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/santa-ana-council-2 - 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: 80 out of 100 (Strong), across 4 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Selica Diaz** — Community Volunteer - **Benjamin Vazquez** — Teacher/Councilmember · Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Benjamin Vazquez is running for re-election against Selica Diaz. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff. This person holds Ward 2's seat on Santa Ana's 6-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside the citywide-elected Mayor and an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Not all six wards are elected the same year -- only Wards 2, 4, and 6 have terms expiring in 2026. The term is four years, limited to three terms. Diaz, a Santa Ana native and mother of four with two decades of community involvement, campaigns on homelessness, neighborhood quality of life, and community representation. Vazquez's filed ballot designation is "Teacher/Councilmember"; beyond that, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their tenure or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. ## Selica Diaz A Santa Ana native and community leader with over two decades of service to the city, Diaz is a mother of four who describes contributing to local development, including park creation and securing funding for community initiatives. Her platform centers on three priorities: collaborating with Orange County to access resources that address the causes of homelessness; making neighborhoods "safe, clean, and healthy for everyone to live, grow, and enjoy life"; and ensuring neighborhoods have a voice on the City Council. Her campaign slogan is "Empowering Local Governance." **Strengths:** Two decades of hands-on community involvement, including a self-described role in local park and funding projects. **Trade-offs:** No prior elected office; her campaign site does not detail specific budget or land-use positions beyond general quality-of-life goals. **Keep in mind:** No campaign-finance figures are available; see Financial info. ## Benjamin Vazquez Filed their candidacy (and currently serves) under the ballot designation "Teacher/Councilmember." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their background, tenure, or platform could be found. **Strengths:** Sitting incumbency plus a teaching background suggests direct familiarity with both the council's work and the district's schools and families. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement, record summary, or platform was found, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities or accomplishments in office beyond their listed occupation. **Keep in mind:** No campaign-finance figures are available; see Financial info. ## Review notes - Selica Diaz's own campaign site ("Selica Diaz for Santa Ana City Council Ward 2"): her own framing of her candidacy and platform may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources. ## Sources 1. [OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Santa Ana section (PDF pages 150-154 of 188, recovered by locally inflating the document's FlateDecode page streams with Python's zlib, since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Mayor (3 qualified candidates), City Council Ward 2 (2), Ward 4 (2), and Ward 6 (2) as the city's four November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation -- including that Ward 6's named incumbent, David Penaloza, does not appear among Ward 6's two qualified candidates](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [City of Santa Ana -- City Council page: confirms the seven-member body (Mayor elected citywide plus six ward councilmembers), 4-year/three-term-limit councilmember terms vs. the Mayor's 2-year/four-term-limit terms, and the sitting roster (Mayor Valerie Amezcua; Mayor Pro Tem David Penaloza; Ward 1 Thai Viet Phan; Ward 2 Benjamin Vazquez; Ward 3 Jessie Lopez; Ward 4 Phil Bacerra; Ward 5 Johnathan Ryan Hernandez)](https://santa-ana.gov/departments/city-council/) 3. [Selica Diaz's own campaign site ("Selica Diaz for Santa Ana City Council Ward 2"): her own framing of her candidacy -- a Santa Ana native and mother of four with two decades of community service -- and platform (homelessness, neighborhood quality of life, community representation)](https://www.selicadiaz.com) 4. [League of Women Voters -- Vote411 voter guide, 'City of Santa Ana City Council Member, Ward 2' race (statewide All Races list): each candidate's self-submitted ballot designation and campaign contacts, plus answers to the League's questions -- 'If elected, what are your top 3 priorities?', 'What background, experience and/or education qualify you for this elected office?' and the Santa Ana League's own question 'What is your position on the use of Flock cameras or similar devices?'. No answers were on file at capture. Capture in data/nov-2026/sources/vote411/santa-ana-council-2.json.](https://www.vote411.org/plan-your-vote) ## The rest of the ballot Santa Ana City Council, Ward 2 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, "Santa Ana City Council, Ward 2 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/santa-ana-council-2 (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.