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City of Stockton · Statewide General Election

Stockton City Council, District 3

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 your district's seat on Stockton's 7-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside a directly elected Mayor and an appointed City Manager who runs day-to-day operations. A 4-year term, with a 2-term limit. This cycle covers only Districts 1, 3, and 5; Stockton's Mayor was elected in November 2024 and is not on this ballot.

Incumbent Michael Blower, a second-term councilmember and lifelong Stockton resident, faces Jessica Toccoli, whose campaign a local columnist has accused of running mailers with a doctored newspaper article, in a runoff after neither cleared a majority in the June 2 primary.

Stockton's City Council has seven voting members -- six elected by district plus a Mayor elected citywide -- serving 4-year terms with a 2-term limit, under a council-manager form of government in which an appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. Only Districts 1, 3, and 5 are on this ballot; their winners serve January 2027 through December 2030. Districts 2, 4, and 6 are not up this cycle. Mayor Christina Fugazi, elected citywide in November 2024, is in her first term as Mayor and is not up for reelection until 2028, which is why no Mayor's race appears on this ballot.

Blower led a four-candidate June 2 primary field with 4,192 votes (48.24%) -- short of a majority -- followed by Toccoli's 3,145 votes (36.19%). Joey Veltri (10.02%) and Stefanie Alfaro (5.55%) were eliminated. Because no candidate cleared 50%, Blower and Toccoli advance to a November 3 runoff; whoever gets more votes wins outright, with no further round.

Michael Blower

The incumbent, elected to this District 3 seat in 2022 and sworn in January 2023; his filed ballot designation is "Councilmember/Business Owner." A lifelong Stockton resident, he earlier served a brief term representing District 4 from February to December 2016. He is active with the Rotary Club of Stockton, sits on the Stockton Police Chaplaincy board, and volunteers at the Stockton Emergency Food Bank; his stated priorities are homelessness, neighborhood safety, better-paying jobs, and fiscal accountability. In August 2024, Blower joined Councilmember Brando Villapudua (himself a candidate this cycle in District 5) in filing the complaint that led the Council to censure colleague Michele Padilla (District 1, also a candidate this cycle) for misusing city discretionary funds on a 2024 political event.

Strengths

A full term's Council experience plus a brief 2016 stint, and deep civic roots (Rotary, police chaplaincy, food bank).

Trade-offs

This dataset found no independent (non-official) evaluation of his substantive policy votes beyond the Padilla complaint.

Keep in mind

Filing that complaint puts him at odds with a colleague voters may also be weighing elsewhere on this same ballot -- worth knowing if you're thinking about how a new Council would work together.

Jessica Toccoli

A challenger whose filed ballot designation is "Educator." Stocktonia opinion columnist Michael Fitzgerald has raised several specific, sourced concerns about her campaign: mailers he says contain disputed claims about Blower's record (including on drag performers in libraries and addiction-recovery facilities); at least one mailer that appears to reproduce a doctored Stockton Record article, with its headline altered from "compassionate city" to "sanctuary city" and its photos swapped; an unfiled campaign-finance disclosure (Form 460) as of the column's May 2026 publication; her avoidance of public candidate forums and of his own questions about her campaign; and voter records showing she moved into District 3 from a District 4 address shortly before the filing deadline. This dataset presents these as Fitzgerald's own reported findings and opinion, not as this dataset's independent confirmation. A same-period Stockton Record news article covering similar ground ("Toccoli questioned over mailers, outreach in Stockton City Council race," June 1, 2026) was not independently reachable this session.

Strengths

Not established in the sourcing found for this race -- this dataset found no independent profile of her background beyond her filed occupation.

Trade-offs

A local columnist's sourced allegations -- doctored mailers, an unfiled finance disclosure, a recent move into the district, and avoiding public questions -- are serious if accurate.

Keep in mind

These are one columnist's findings, not a court or Council finding; this dataset could not independently verify them through Stockton's own finance portal (see Financial info below).

June 2 primary — how they advanced

Michael Blower48.24% · 4,192 votes
Jessica Toccoli36.19% · 3,145 votes
Joey Veltri10.02% · 871 votes
Stefanie Alfaro5.55% · 482 votes
Source review: Strong (86/100) · 11 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • sjgov.org (opens in a new tab)San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters -- official "Offices Up for Election" document for the Nov. 3, 2026 General Election: lists the City of Stockton's three offices -- Member of City Council, Districts 1, 3, and 5, each a 4-year term, elected by district -- under the "MUNICIPAL OFFICES -- ADVANCED FROM PRIMARY" heading, with no separate Mayor line, confirming all three are June-to-November runoffs and the Mayor is not up this cycle.
  • sjgov.org (opens in a new tab)San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters -- official "Candidate List" (report CFMR009), Qualified Candidates Only, printed 8/20/2026: confirms exactly two qualified candidates per Stockton district, each "On Ballot: Yes" -- District 1 (Tamica Small, Michele Padilla), District 3 (Michael Blower, Jessica Toccoli), District 5 (Brando Villapudua, Desiree Lynch) -- with each candidate's filed ballot designation.
  • sjgov.org (opens in a new tab)San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters -- official, certified "Statement of Votes Cast," Statewide Direct Primary, June 2, 2026 (certified by Registrar of Voters Olivia Hale, 6/25/2026): its District Results section gives exact per-candidate vote totals and percentages for all three Stockton City Council contests, establishing that no candidate cleared a majority in any district -- Padilla 49.11% (Small 27.60%, Sanchez 11.41%, Nguyen 9.52%, Hollis 2.36%) in D1; Blower 48.24% (Toccoli 36.19%, Veltri 10.02%, Alfaro 5.55%) in D3; Villapudua 34.04% (Lynch 30.59%, Elizabeth 16.40%, Beas 12.83%, Harper 5.51%, write-in Carpenter 0.64%) in D5.
  • stocktonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Stockton -- official "Elections" page (City Clerk): independently confirms the same three November 2026 Council contests and the same six qualified candidates as the county's own lists, states the majority-or-runoff mechanic directly, and gives the Jan. 1, 2027-Dec. 31, 2030 term for the winners.
  • stocktonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Stockton -- official "City Council" index page: confirms the Council's 7-member structure (six district-elected Councilmembers plus a citywide-elected Mayor), 4-year terms with a 2-term limit, and a council-manager form of government.
  • stocktonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Stockton -- official biography page for Mayor Christina Fugazi: confirms she was elected Mayor citywide in November 2024 (her first term as Mayor, after two prior Council terms beginning 2014), explaining why no Mayor's race appears on this cycle's ballot.
  • stocktonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Stockton -- official biography page for Councilmember Michael Blower (District 3): confirms his current term began January 2023, an earlier brief term representing District 4 (Feb.-Dec. 2016), and his civic affiliations.
  • stocktonia.org (opens in a new tab)Stocktonia -- "Stockton City Council moves ahead with censure investigation of Michele Padilla": reports Councilmembers Michael Blower and Brando Villapudua's Aug. 2024 complaint against Padilla for using roughly $10,000 in city discretionary funds on a July 2024 community barbecue at which political candidates gave campaign speeches.
  • stocktonia.org (opens in a new tab)Stocktonia -- Mike Fitzgerald opinion column, "The strangely familiar 'ghost' campaign of Jessica Toccoli" (the paper's own opinion vertical, not straight news): reports disputed claims in Toccoli's mailers about incumbent Michael Blower's record, an apparently doctored Stockton Record article reproduced in a mailer, an unfiled Form 460 as of publication, her avoidance of public forums, and voter records showing a move into District 3 from a District 4 address shortly before the filing deadline.
  • stocktonia.org (opens in a new tab)Stocktonia -- "'Record time' ballot counting in San Joaquin County shows all three Stockton City Council incumbents could be heading into November runoffs": a June 11, 2026 recap of the semi-final count independently corroborating the same top-two pairing and near-identical percentages in all three districts, later confirmed by the county's certified final Statement of Votes Cast.
  • stocktonca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Stockton -- official "Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)" page (City Clerk): links the same NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (netfile.com/public/SJC/campaign) the county uses countywide -- a negative-result citation, since the portal is a client-rendered single-page application that returned no readable content to this pass's fetch tooling.

Last updated September 1, 2026.