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City of Santa Clara · Statewide General Election

Santa Clara City Council, District 3

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 six district seats on the Santa Clara City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use in this Santa Clara County city of about 128,000, alongside a separately elected, citywide Mayor (also on this ballot) and five other district Council members. A 4-year term, term-limited to two terms.

Two candidates -- Eric Crutchlow and Kyle Madej -- are running for Santa Clara's open City Council District 3 seat. Unlike District 2, this seat isn't open because of term limits: incumbent Karen Hardy is running for Mayor instead of seeking re-election to her own seat (see that contest). Whoever gets the most votes wins outright; this is a plurality election, not ranked-choice.

This person would hold Santa Clara's District 3 seat on the City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use in this Santa Clara County city of about 128,000, alongside a separately elected, citywide Mayor (also on this ballot -- six candidates, including Hardy, are running for that open seat) and five other district Council members. A 4-year term, term-limited to two terms.

District 2 is also open this cycle (see that contest); Districts 1, 4, 5, and 6 -- held respectively by Albert Gonzalez, Kevin Park (also a 2026 mayoral candidate), Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain, and Kelly G. Cox -- aren't up again until 2028. Unlike District 2, this seat isn't open because of term limits: Hardy could have run again but chose the mayor's race instead.

Eric Crutchlow

Eric Crutchlow, 66, has lived in Santa Clara since 1984 and works as a product manager in cybersecurity at Lumen Technologies, a field he's worked in for about 25 years. He currently chairs the city's Planning Commission, where he's served about three years, and previously served on the Charter Review Committee. His campaign centers on city finances -- he argues Santa Clara needs to plan and save for infrastructure maintenance rather than waiting for facilities like the International Swim Center to deteriorate -- and on a more collaborative council culture; he contrasts what he calls council "tension" with the consensus-building he says characterizes the Planning Commission. No campaign committee was found under his name in the city's NetFile portal as of this retrieval, so no financial record exists for his campaign.

Strengths

Multi-year experience on both the Planning Commission (current chair) and the Charter Review Committee -- arguably the most hands-on familiarity with city process of either candidate.

Trade-offs

No campaign committee registered at all means no public financial disclosure exists to review; his cybersecurity career is a specific background but no obvious tie to municipal finance.

Keep in mind

this dataset found no record of either District 3 candidate having run for city office before -- a genuinely fresh matchup for this seat.

Kyle Madej

Kyle Madej, 45, is a Santa Clara native born and raised in District 3, where his family has lived since 1969. He has worked for both the city and Santa Clara Unified School District and is now CEO of Sentinel Holdings Ltd., operating security-services businesses Gladiator Solutions and United Security Specialists; he's also spent more than a decade on the Briarwood Little League board (its president since 2023) and serves on the Santa Clara Youth Soccer League board, coaching youth, high-school, and collegiate baseball and soccer. His priorities include expanding youth programs and recreational space, fully funding police, fire and emergency services, investing specifically in District 3 neighborhoods, and supporting small businesses. His campaign committee, "Madej for City Council 2026," registered between July 17 and Aug. 31, 2026 but had filed no itemized Form 460 as of this retrieval, so no dollar figures are available.

Strengths

Deep, multi-decade roots specifically in District 3 and more than a decade of youth-sports civic leadership -- community-organizing experience distinct from Crutchlow's commission background.

Trade-offs

No fundraising record exists yet to compare against Crutchlow; his security-services business is a less obvious tie to city budgeting than Crutchlow's Planning Commission service.

Keep in mind

his committee's most recent paperwork was filed Aug. 31, 2026 -- the day of this dataset's own retrieval -- so his financial record is the newest in this dataset's Santa Clara coverage.

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 3 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • vote.santaclaracounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters -- the "City of Santa Clara" List-of-Officeholders page: confirms Mayor, City Clerk, and Chief of Police are elected at-large and City Council is six district seats (1-6), each a 4-year term, and shows Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor, District 2's Raj Chahal, and District 3's Karen Hardy all up for "NEXT ELECTION" in 2026, while Districts 1, 4, 5, and 6 (Albert Gonzalez, Kevin Park, Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain, Kelly G. Cox) aren't up again until 2028. A live fetch of the county elections domain 403s in this pass; retrieved instead via a Wayback Machine snapshot dated 2025-09-10.
  • sanjosespotlight.com (opens in a new tab)San José Spotlight -- "Four candidates face off for two Santa Clara council seats" (Maryanne Casas-Perez, Aug. 20, 2026), read in full via a Wayback Machine snapshot (a live sanjosespotlight.com fetch 403s in this pass): confirms both District 2 seat candidates (Yvonne Inciarte, Kimberley Williams, running for the seat held by term-limited-out Raj Chahal) and both District 3 seat candidates (Eric Crutchlow, Kyle Madej, running for the seat Karen Hardy is vacating to run for mayor instead of seeking re-election), with ages, backgrounds, platforms, and a direct on-record quote from each.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)City of Santa Clara's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (aid=CSC), queried directly by name via its own QuickNameSearch and filings/byCandidate JSON API (reverse-engineered from the portal's own downloaded JS bundle; this bundle version keys on aid/candidateId/agencyCode params, not the byFilerId variant an earlier pass in this file documented for a different NetFile bundle version), with each available candidate's Form 460 downloaded directly via the portal's own CampaignDocuments/download endpoint (one, Kathy Watanabe's, a scanned image PDF with no extractable text layer, read by rendering it to an image and reading the figures directly). Mayor's race: Watanabe reported $15,362.54 in total contributions ($10,362.54 monetary, $5,000 in loans) against $6,222.63 in expenditures, ending cash $9,139.91; Kertes reported $12,422.80 in total contributions ($950 monetary, $11,472.80 in loans -- per Schedule B, all of it loaned by Kertes to himself) against $11,462.80 in expenditures, ending cash $960.00 and $11,472.80 in outstanding debt owed to himself; Ferraris's committee, formed July 7, 2026, reported $0 in contributions and $0 in expenditures for the Jan.-June 2026 period; Hardy's committee has registered but filed no Form 460 yet; Park has no 2026 mayoral committee or filing on record at all (only a routine 2025 annual Form 470 tied to his existing District 4 officeholder committee); Wiltberger has no committee registered under any name searched. District 2: Inciarte has registered a committee but filed no Form 460 yet; Williams has no committee registered at all. District 3: Madej has registered a committee ("Madej for City Council 2026") but filed no Form 460 yet; Crutchlow has no committee registered at all. None of this is evidence of any candidate's final fundraising totals for the cycle -- it documents exactly what could and couldn't be confirmed as of this retrieval.

Last updated August 31, 2026.