# Mayor of Tracy

Compare records and positions simply between Uyiosa Felix Oviawe, Dan Arriola, or Mateo Bedolla for Mayor of Tracy at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. Tracy's Mayor is elected directly, citywide, for a two-year term. The Mayor presides over the City Council. The rest of the Council is now elected by district. This is the first cycle that has happened, replacing at-large elections. Tracy is a San Joaquin County community of about 93,000 people. City Manager Midori Lichtwardt runs day-to-day operations under Council direction. The Mayor is limited to two terms. The Mayor elected in 2024 may serve one more term.

- Jurisdiction: City of Tracy
- 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/tracy-mayor
- 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: September 3, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 92 out of 100 (Very strong), across 9 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Uyiosa Felix Oviawe** — Maintenance Director/Contractor
- **Dan Arriola** — Deputy District Attorney · Incumbent
- **Mateo Bedolla** — Teacher/Tracy Councilmember

A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot.

Three candidates are running for Tracy's Mayor: incumbent Dan Arriola, seeking a second 2-year term; Councilman Mateo Bedolla, who currently holds a Council seat by appointment rather than election; and Uyiosa Felix Oviawe, president of an environmental consulting and engineering firm.

Tracy's Mayor is directly elected citywide to a 2-year term and presides over a City Council that, for the first time this cycle, is otherwise elected by district rather than at-large. The city, a San Joaquin County community of about 93,000 residents per the 2020 Census, is run day-to-day by City Manager Midori Lichtwardt under Council direction. Per Tracy Press's own reporting, Arriola, elected Mayor in 2024, is "eligible to serve one more term" if reelected -- consistent with a two-term limit on the office.

This cycle is also the city's first-ever district-based Council election, adopted after a public, CVRA-driven map process the Council completed in January 2026 (see the Council District 1 and Council District 3 contests for detail). The Mayor's own seat remains directly elected citywide and is unaffected by that change.

## Dan Arriola

His filed ballot designation is "Deputy District Attorney." Arriola was elected to the Tracy Unified School District Board in 2016, to City Council in 2018, re-elected to Council in 2022, and elected Mayor in 2024 -- by Tracy Press's account, his fifth mayoral campaign. At his July 31, 2026 re-election launch he described a childhood marked by poverty, working as a janitor and house cleaner at 13, and cited as his record: leading a successful effort before the League of California Cities to block a state e-commerce tax-law change he says would have cost Tracy $30 million a year; co-founding the Homeless Advisory Committee that led to the city's Temporary Emergency Housing Facility; the CENCAL ambulance service and Tracy Fire's new training facility; and improved police response-time and crime statistics, with a new substation in the works. He announced a new Mayor's Youth Cradle to Career Initiative for this year.

**Strengths:** Nearly eight years of elected city service (school board, Council, then Mayor), a specific record of city initiatives, and a clear 2024 plurality win.

**Trade-offs:** An incumbent's record is also a record to defend on the same points -- housing, public safety, and the local economy -- that his opponents are running on.

**Keep in mind:** Per Tracy Press, this would be his final eligible term as Mayor if the city's apparent two-term limit holds.

## Mateo Bedolla

His filed ballot designation is "Teacher/Tracy Councilmember." Bedolla was elected to City Council in 2020. In Tracy's last at-large Council election (Nov. 2024, two seats), he came in third of 11 candidates -- behind winners Steve Abercrombie and Dotty Nygard -- meaning he lost his own re-election bid. He was appointed, not elected, to the Council seat he now holds: the vacancy Arriola left when sworn in as Mayor. That appointment followed a contentious Jan. 2025 special council meeting where the new council reaffirmed, 3-1, a policy of appointing the next-highest vote-getter from the most recent election (Nygard dissented, arguing the policy "disenfranchises" voters who had rejected the candidate), then appointed Bedolla 4-0. He told the council at the time, "I'm here to ask you to let me continue the work that I've been doing the last 4 years." Bedolla also ran for Mayor in 2022 and for San Joaquin County Supervisor in the 2020 primary; per Tracy Press's own election roundup, both bids were unsuccessful.

**Strengths:** Council experience dating to 2020 and direct familiarity with city hall.

**Trade-offs:** He holds his Council seat by council appointment, not election -- his most recent direct election (Nov. 2024) was a loss to two other candidates.

**Keep in mind:** This is his third bid for county or citywide office since 2020 (Supervisor 2020, Mayor 2022, Mayor 2026), on top of his 2020 and 2024 Council races.

## Uyiosa Felix Oviawe

Their filed ballot designation is "Maintenance Director/Contractor." Per Tracy Press's own reporting, Oviawe is the president of Murgreen Environmental, a consulting, engineering, planning, environmental, and surveying firm. This dataset's real, multi-method search -- the city's own site (which returned HTTP 403 to every direct fetch attempted this session), Wikipedia, Ballotpedia, and Tracy Press's own site search -- found no further independent biography, platform, or campaign material for them beyond this.

**Strengths:** not established in the sourcing found for this race.

**Trade-offs:** as a first-time candidate with limited public record beyond their professional role, voters have little to weigh them against two current and former elected officials.

**Keep in mind:** this is a documented sourcing gap, not evidence against them -- a real search effort turned up nothing further to report.

## Sources

1. [San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters -- official "Offices Up for Election" document for the Nov. 3, 2026 General Election: lists the City of Tracy's three offices -- Mayor (2-year term, at-large, 20 nominations needed) and Member of City Council, Districts 1 and 3 (each a 4-year term, elected by district) -- with no other Tracy office appearing.](https://www.sjgov.org/docs/default-source/registrar-of-voters-documents/elections/gubernatorial-general-election-2026/candidate-services/offices-up-for-2026-general-election.pdf)
2. [San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters -- official "Candidate List" (report CFMR009), Qualified Candidates Only, printed 8/20/2026: names all three Tracy contests "On Ballot: Yes" with each candidate's filed ballot designation and filing date -- Mayor (Mateo Bedolla, "Teacher/Tracy Councilmember"; Dan Arriola, "Deputy District Attorney"; Uyiosa Felix Oviawe, "Maintenance Director/Contractor"), District 1 (Jass Sangha, "Businesswoman/Mother"; Robin Cole, "Project Manager"), and District 3 (Dan Evans, "Council Member"; Ameni Alexander, "Nonprofit Organization CFO"; Ametrius V. Sidney, "Public Safety Executive").](https://www.sjgov.org/docs/default-source/registrar-of-voters-documents/elections/gubernatorial-general-election-2026/candidate-services/candidate-roster-(35).pdf)
3. [Tracy Press -- "Council agrees on district election map": the City Council's Jan. 16, 2026 special meeting adopting the four-district "Green" map for Tracy's first-ever district-based Council election, in response to statewide California Voting Rights Act of 2002 litigation risk; names which sitting council members live in which draft district and which two districts are up in 2026 versus 2028, and quotes consultant Michael Wagaman stating the discussion-phase district numbers "could change by the time the election comes around."](https://www.ttownmedia.com/tracy_press/council-agrees-on-district-election-map/article_4ec66c2a-c370-43db-a310-fd660d5b6402.html)
4. [Tracy Press -- "Ballots are set for Nov. 3 local elections": the paper's own post-filing-deadline election roundup, independently confirming the county's certified roster for all three Tracy contests and adding biographical detail beyond ballot designations -- Arriola's full elected-office history (TUSD board 2016, Council 2018, Mayor 2024, "eligible to serve one more term"), Bedolla's 2022 mayoral run and 2020 County Supervisor primary run, Oviawe's role as president of Murgreen Environmental, Sangha's 2010 council and 2020 mayoral runs, and Alexander's and Sidney's backgrounds (TUSD board 2018-2022 for Alexander; 24-year resident and County of San Mateo Public Safety Communications Deputy Director, first campaign for office, for Sidney).](https://www.ttownmedia.com/tracy_press/ballots-set-for-nov-3-local-elections/article_502045c0-a3c3-4e25-b4dc-b341e69dc15d.html)
5. [Wikipedia's Tracy, California article -- 2020 Census population of about 93,000; confirms a City Manager form of government (current City Manager Midori Lichtwardt) and names Dan Arriola as Mayor; does not describe the city's council-district structure or any 2026 candidate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy,_California)
6. [Tracy Press -- "Mayor announces his run for re-election" (by Bob Brownne): reports on Mayor Dan Arriola's July 31, 2026 campaign-launch rally at Tracy City Hall, with extended on-the-record quotes on his childhood, his priorities (accountability, public safety, the local economy, and quality of life), his record blocking a state e-commerce tax-law change he says would have cost Tracy $30 million annually, the Homeless Advisory Committee's role in creating the city's Temporary Emergency Housing Facility, the CENCAL ambulance service and Tracy Fire's new training facility, and a new Mayor's Youth Cradle to Career Initiative; also names all candidates who had filed notices of intention to run as of that date across all three contests.](https://www.ttownmedia.com/tracy_press/mayor-announces-his-run-for-re-election/article_c68b5f8b-250b-4fd1-a319-53bb1974c4c1.html)
7. [Tracy Press -- "Arriola is top pick for mayor, Abercrombie leads in council race": Nov. 2024 election-night results for Tracy's last at-large Mayor and two-seat Council races, reporting Arriola's 47.04% win over Eleassia Davis and Mary Mitracos for Mayor, Abercrombie's lead for one council seat, and a near-tie for the second seat between Dotty Nygard and incumbent Mateo Bedolla; quotes Arriola on his local roots and prior TUSD board and City Council service, and states this was his fifth mayoral campaign.](https://www.ttownmedia.com/tracy_press/news/arriola-is-top-pick-for-mayor-abercrombie-leads-in-council-race/article_a4cfa2cc-9bfd-11ef-85a2-6f5bc39d4aff.html)
8. [Tracy Press -- "Bedolla is back on city council" (by Bob Brownne): reports that Mateo Bedolla came in third of 11 candidates in Tracy's Nov. 5, 2024 at-large two-seat Council election (won outright by Steve Abercrombie and Dotty Nygard), and was appointed -- after a Jan. 2025 special meeting with extensive public comment and on-the-record council debate, including Nygard's dissent that the policy "disenfranchises" voters -- to the Council vacancy left when Dan Arriola was sworn in as Mayor, under a reaffirmed city policy of appointing the next-highest vote-getter from the most recent election (reaffirmed 3-1; Bedolla appointed 4-0), serving the remainder of Arriola's term (through Dec. 2026).](https://www.ttownmedia.com/tracy_press/bedolla-is-back-on-city-council/article_b7247592-ceca-11ef-b75d-d7408ae4f658.html)
9. [San Joaquin County's own NetFile public campaign-disclosure portal (agency code "SJC") -- a live-browser name search of the full candidate/committee index found no 2026 filing for any of the eight Tracy candidates (Bedolla, Arriola, Oviawe, Sangha, Cole, Evans, Alexander, Sidney)](https://netfile.com/public/SJC/campaign)

## The rest of the ballot

Mayor of Tracy 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, "Mayor of Tracy — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/tracy-mayor (sources last retrieved September 3, 2026).

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