# Turlock City Council, District 3

Compare records and positions simply between Cassandra Abram or Ryan Taylor for Turlock City Council, District 3 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Turlock's 5-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside the citywide-elected mayor and three other district councilmembers. The term is four years. Districts 2 and 4 aren't up again until 2028.

- Jurisdiction: City of Turlock
- 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/turlock-council-3
- 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 1, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 91 out of 100 (Very strong), across 10 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Cassandra Abram** — Optometrist · Incumbent
- **Ryan Taylor** — Business Owner

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

Two candidates are running for Turlock's District 3 council seat: incumbent Cassandra Abram against challenger Ryan Taylor. A third filer, Gurjot Virk, pulled nomination papers but never filed them and is not on the ballot. Whichever of Abram or Taylor gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright -- no runoff.

This seat is one of Turlock's four district-elected City Council seats -- Districts 1 through 4 -- each a 4-year term, alongside the citywide-elected Mayor. Councilmembers vote on the city's budget, ordinances, and land use; day-to-day operations run through an appointed city manager. Districts 2 and 4 aren't up again until 2028.

Abram has held the seat since being elected in 2022. Taylor filed on the same day the nomination period opened, July 13, 2026 -- the same day Abram filed -- and both were verified within about a week of each other, so this is a race where both candidates entered early.

## Cassandra Abram

Cassandra Abram is Turlock's sitting District 3 councilmember, elected in 2022 and now seeking a second term. An optometrist with a Doctor of Optometry degree from the Southern California College of Optometry, the city's own council page describes Abram as a mother of two focused on operational efficiency and community engagement. Abram filed their nomination papers July 13, 2026, verified July 20. No independent news profile beyond the city's own page and filing documents was found for them in this pass.

**Strengths:** A completed first term already in hand and a professional background (optometry) distinct from most of this cycle's other Turlock candidates.

**Trade-offs:** No independent news coverage or campaign website beyond the city's own bio page was found, so specific votes or initiatives from their first term aren't documented here.

**Keep in mind:** A second term would give Abram roughly six years on the council -- whether their stated focus on efficiency and engagement shows up in decisions is for meeting records to say.

## Ryan Taylor

Ryan Taylor is challenging incumbent Cassandra Abram for the District 3 seat. Taylor filed their nomination papers July 13, 2026, the same day Abram filed, verified July 22. No independent news profile, campaign website, or civic-board record was found for them in this pass beyond their own filing with the city and the county's ballot designation for them, "Business Owner."

**Strengths:** No independent source describes any record, background, or platform for Taylor beyond their name and filing dates on the city's certified candidate list.

**Trade-offs:** Voters have no statement, platform, or public record to weigh for Taylor beyond their ballot designation, "Business Owner," and their filing dates.

**Keep in mind:** A thin public profile here reflects what could be found in this pass, not a judgment about their candidacy or qualifications.

## Sources

1. [Stanislaus County Registrar of Voters -- "Unofficial Candidate List," General Election Nov. 3, 2026 (generated 7:57 AM, 8/31/2026): the countywide candidate roster; its City of Turlock block names the same 7 qualified candidates across Mayor, Council District 1, and Council District 3 with matching ballot designations and incumbent flags, independently corroborating the city's own Candidate List -- cited for that cross-confirmation only, since the document's per-city footer labels don't reliably mark block boundaries](https://www.stanvote.gov/pdf/candidate-list.pdf)
2. [City of Turlock -- "Elections" page: confirms the 3 open offices this cycle (Mayor, Council District 1, Council District 3), each a full 4-year term, and the July 13-Aug. 7, 2026 nomination period (extendable to Aug. 12 for an incumbent's unfilled seat)](https://www.turlock.ca.us/government/elections)
3. [City of Turlock -- "Candidate List," Nov. 3, 2026 General Municipal Election (City Clerk, updated 8/7/2026 5:13 PM): the city's own certified, ballot-facing roster with exact papers-pulled/filed/verified dates for all 7 qualified candidates across the 3 open offices, and recording that a fourth District 3 filer, Gurjot Virk, pulled papers July 23 but never filed them ("Candidate Withdrew") and so is not a qualified candidate](https://www.turlock.ca.us/_pdf/cityclerkdocs.asp?id=13)
4. [City of Turlock -- Public Notice, General Municipal Election Nov. 3, 2026: confirms the nomination period for Mayor, Council District 1, and Council District 3 closed Aug. 7, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. with no extension for any of the three offices](https://www.turlock.ca.us/_pdf/cityclerkdocs.asp?id=26)
5. [City of Turlock -- "Turlock City Council" page: names current officeholders and term-expiration dates -- Mayor Amy Bublak (at-large, term expires 2026), Kevin Bixel (District 1, term expires 2026), Rebecka Monez (District 2, term expires 2028), Cassandra Abram (District 3, term expires 2026), Erika Phillips (District 4, term expires 2028) -- confirming which 3 seats are up this cycle and that Districts 2/4 are not, and giving short biographies for Bublak, Bixel, and Abram](https://www.turlock.ca.us/government/turlockcitycouncil)
6. [Turlock Journal -- "Local races set as candidate filing period closes": independently confirms the same 3-office, 7-candidate field, naming Bublak as the Mayor incumbent "seeking a third mayoral term" and having served on council since 2010, and identifying Reape as a health care professional and Planning Commission member](https://www.turlockjournal.com/news/government/local-races-set-as-candidate-filing-period-closes/)
7. [Turlock Journal -- "Turlock mayoral race down to 3": profiles all 3 mayoral candidates -- Bublak (first elected to council in 2008, mayor since 2018, seeking a third mayoral term), Reape (nurse practitioner/physician assistant, Air Force veteran, planning commissioner since 2017), and Coelho (private investigator, Army Reserves veteran, county veterans commission) -- and reports that Jeremy Rocha withdrew from the mayoral race to run for the District 1 council seat instead](https://www.turlockjournal.com/news/government/turlock-mayoral-race-down-to-3/)
8. [Turlock Journal -- "Rocha joins race for mayoral seat": profiles Jeremy Rocha before his later switch to District 1 -- a bachelor's in political science and a master's in public administration from Stanislaus State, service on the Parks, Arts and Recreation Commission and the Stanislaus Council of Governments' citizen advisory committee, a prior unsuccessful 2010 council campaign, and his "Turlock Horizon" platform proposing the city adopt a charter](https://www.turlockjournal.com/news/government/rocha-joins-race-for-mayoral-seat/)
9. [Wikipedia -- Turlock, California: government section confirms a council-manager government, a 5-member council (an at-large Mayor plus 4 district councilmembers, all 4-year terms), and a 2020 Census population of 72,740 -- cited only for this general structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlock,_California)
10. [A partial financial-info gap: the City of Turlock's own FPPC campaign-statements page lists, for every 2026 candidate, which Form 410/460/470/497/501 disclosures they've filed and when -- reachable without the NetFile CAPTCHA gate documented elsewhere in this dataset -- but the underlying filings are scanned image PDFs with no extractable text layer, so specific dollar totals (contributions raised, expenditures, cash on hand) could not be confirmed by this session's fetch tooling for any candidate](https://www.turlock.ca.us/government/elections/fppccampaignstatements.asp)

## The rest of the ballot

Turlock City Council, District 3 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, "Turlock City Council, District 3 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/turlock-council-3 (sources last retrieved September 1, 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.