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City of Turlock · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Turlock

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 presides over City Council meetings and represents Turlock publicly, elected citywide rather than by district. Turlock's mayor votes as one of five members on the budget and city ordinances -- day-to-day operations run through an appointed city manager. A 4-year term.

Three candidates are running for Turlock's at-large Mayor seat: incumbent Amy Bublak, seeking a third mayoral term, against challengers Jim Reape and Kelley Coelho. Whichever gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright -- no runoff.

Turlock's Mayor presides over City Council meetings and represents the city publicly, but votes as one of five members on the budget and city ordinances -- day-to-day operations run through an appointed city manager. It's the only council seat elected citywide rather than by district. All five council seats, including the mayor's, serve 4-year terms.

Bublak is a two-term incumbent completing her fourth election to city office overall: she joined the council in 2008, was reelected in 2012 and 2016, then won the mayor's seat in 2018 and again in 2022. Reape has been a Planning Commissioner since 2017 and has served on other city committees since 2014, giving him City Hall exposure without having held elected office. Coelho, a private investigator, originally intended to run for the District 1 council seat before entering the mayoral race instead.

Amy Bublak

Amy Bublak is Turlock's sitting Mayor, seeking a third mayoral term after joining the City Council in 2008 and being reelected twice before winning the mayor's seat in 2018 and 2022. She's a former law enforcement officer with more than 20 years of experience -- Turlock's first woman mayor and its first retired police officer elected to the position -- and holds a Master of Public Administration from San Francisco State University. She filed her nomination papers earliest of any 2026 Turlock candidate for any of the city's three seats, pulled July 13 and verified July 16.

Strengths

Nearly two decades of city elected experience, plus a two-decade law enforcement career that predates her council service, gives voters a long, checkable record.

Trade-offs

No source found in this pass details specific mayoral-term accomplishments or criticisms beyond her bare officeholder history and law enforcement background.

Keep in mind

A third term would extend an 18-year run in Turlock elected office begun in 2008 -- whether that continuity or a change is preferable is what this contest asks voters.

Jim Reape

Jim Reape is a nurse practitioner and physician assistant and a U.S. Air Force veteran who has served on Turlock city committees since 2014, including as a Planning Commissioner since 2017. He filed his nomination papers July 14, 2026, verified July 22 -- one day after Bublak's earliest filing date. No independent news profile beyond the Turlock Journal's brief candidate-roundup description and the city's own filing documents was found for him in this pass.

Strengths

Nearly a decade of city committee service, including nine years on the Planning Commission by Election Day, gives him land-use exposure relevant to a council seat.

Trade-offs

He has never held elected office, so unlike Bublak's record, voters can't point to a specific vote of his; no campaign website or news profile beyond a brief roundup was found.

Keep in mind

A vote for him bets on appointed-commission experience rather than an existing elected record -- the opposite trade-off from voting for incumbent Bublak.

Kelley Coelho

Kelley Coelho is a private investigator and U.S. Army Reserves veteran who recently served on Stanislaus County's veterans commission. She originally intended to run for the District 1 council seat before entering the mayoral race instead, and filed her nomination papers July 13, 2026, verified July 22. No independent news profile beyond the Turlock Journal's brief candidate-roundup description and the city's own filing documents was found for her in this pass.

Strengths

A military and investigative background distinct from both opponents', plus recent county-level veterans-commission service touching public-facing civic work.

Trade-offs

Like Reape, she has never held elected office; no campaign website, platform, or news profile beyond a brief roundup description was found in this pass.

Keep in mind

Her switch from a planned District 1 run to the mayoral race is documented by the Journal but the reasoning isn't -- a research gap, not a claim none exists.

Source review: Very strong (91/100) · 10 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

  • stanvote.gov (opens in a new tab)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
  • turlock.ca.us (opens in a new tab)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)
  • turlock.ca.us (opens in a new tab)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
  • turlock.ca.us (opens in a new tab)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
  • turlock.ca.us (opens in a new tab)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
  • turlockjournal.com (opens in a new tab)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
  • turlockjournal.com (opens in a new tab)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
  • turlockjournal.com (opens in a new tab)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
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)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
  • turlock.ca.us (opens in a new tab)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

Last updated September 1, 2026.