# Santa Ana City Council, Ward 4 Compare records and positions simply between Sandra De Anda or Phil Bacerra for Santa Ana City Council, Ward 4 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-4 - 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: 83 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 - **Sandra De Anda** — Immigrant Rights Director - **Phil Bacerra** — Santa Ana City Councilmember · Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Phil Bacerra is running for re-election against Sandra De Anda. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright. There is no runoff. This person holds Ward 4'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. Bacerra, a Santa Ana native with more than five years on the Planning Commission before their council election, campaigns for re-election on homelessness, investment and jobs, streets and sidewalks, and public safety. De Anda's filed ballot designation is "Immigrant Rights Director"; beyond that, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. ## Phil Bacerra Bacerra is a Santa Ana native and homeowner. Bacerra is the son of a union grocery-store manager and a waitress. They worked as a busboy at their uncle's restaurant. They then earned a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning from USC. They brought city-government experience from prior roles in Los Angeles and other agencies. They served more than five years on the Santa Ana Planning Commission before their council election. They currently represent Santa Ana on the Orange County Fire Authority Board, and chaired it in 2025. They serve on the Southern California Association of Governments' Transportation Committee. They volunteer with the Santa Ana Elks and mentors students. They previously served on the General Plan Advisory Group and the Historic Resources Commission. They point to strengthened laws against public intoxication among their council accomplishments. They also point to a new police substation in South Santa Ana. They cite funding for traffic signals, park improvements, and fire-station repairs. Their re-election platform emphasizes continuing to address homelessness. It also emphasizes attracting investment and job creation. They want to improve sidewalks and streets and support police and fire resources. **Strengths:** An urban-planning degree and planning-commission service before taking office. Bacerra also chairs the OC Fire Authority Board. That role touches fire-service decisions affecting the city. **Trade-offs:** A sitting incumbent's record is a known quantity, for better or worse, rather than a fresh start. Their campaign material is self-reported rather than independently verified. **Keep in mind:** No campaign-finance figures are available; see Financial info. ## Sandra De Anda De Anda filed under the ballot designation "Immigrant Rights Director." In their Vote411 questionnaire they describe themselves as a third-generation Santa Ana resident and the eldest of seven children of parents from Sinaloa, Mexico, and says they earned an English literature degree at Reed College. They describe nearly a decade of immigrant-rights, legal-advocacy and organizing work, starting at the Orange County Justice Fund and now as Director of the Orange County Rapid Response Network. They say they led a reform of the city's U-visa certification process, joined the Willowick Golf Course land-use campaign and helped set up the Ayuda Sin Fronteras emergency fund for immigrant families. This is their first campaign for public office, they note. Their three stated priorities are a City Hall that is transparent and responsive, with stronger oversight of city contracts and surveillance technology and real help for residents regardless of immigration status, income or language; healthy, safe neighborhoods, with clean streets, parks, safer streets for walkers and cyclists, youth and senior programs, mental-health resources and community-based public safety; and keeping Santa Ana affordable, with more affordable housing, expanded rent stabilization and just-cause eviction protections, stronger tenant rights and a safety net for families facing job loss, eviction or immigration enforcement. On Flock cameras they say they do not support them or similar surveillance programs, citing privacy and their effect on communities of color and on women. **Strengths:** Nearly a decade of immigrant-rights legal advocacy and organizing, now directing a countywide rapid-response network, by their own account. **Trade-offs:** Their priorities lean toward renter protections, rent stabilization and limits on surveillance technology, a cost if you prefer lighter regulation of housing and public-safety tools. **Keep in mind:** Their background and the reforms they credit themselves with are their own account, not independently verified. No campaign-finance figures are available; see Financial info. ## Review notes - Phil Bacerra's own campaign site ("Phil Bacerra for Santa Ana City Council Ward 4"): his own framing of his re-election candidacy, background, record, 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. [Phil Bacerra's own campaign site ("Phil Bacerra for Santa Ana City Council Ward 4"): his own framing of his re-election candidacy -- a Santa Ana native, USC-trained urban planner, 5+ years on the Planning Commission before his council election, and current OC Fire Authority Board chair -- and platform (homelessness, investment/jobs, streets and sidewalks, public safety)](https://www.philbacerra.com) 4. [League of Women Voters -- Vote411 voter guide, 'City of Santa Ana City Council Member, Ward 4' 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?'. Answers on file from De Anda (listed as 'Sandra DeAnda'). Capture in data/nov-2026/sources/vote411/santa-ana-council-4.json.](https://www.vote411.org/plan-your-vote) ## The rest of the ballot Santa Ana City Council, Ward 4 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 4 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/santa-ana-council-4 (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.