# Mayor of Tustin Compare records and positions simply between Letitia Clark or Austin Lumbard for Mayor of Tustin at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person presides over City Council meetings and represents Tustin publicly. Voters elect the Mayor directly, citywide. Fellow councilmembers do not choose the Mayor. An appointed city manager runs daily government. Tustin's Council has the Mayor plus four district Council Members. Not all four districts are up the same year. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of Tustin - 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/tustin-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: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 3 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Letitia Clark** — Community College Director - **Austin Lumbard** — Tustin Mayor/Businessman · Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Mayor Austin Lumbard is running for a second term against challenger Letitia Clark, whose filed ballot designation is "Community College Director." Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff. This person presides over City Council meetings and represents Tustin publicly, elected directly by voters citywide rather than chosen by fellow councilmembers -- day-to-day city government runs through an appointed city manager. Tustin's Council is a Mayor plus four district Council Members; not all four districts are up the same year. The term is four years. Beyond Lumbard's substantive city-published biography and Clark's own filed occupation, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source could be found for Clark despite a real search effort across multiple engines. Documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation. ## Austin Lumbard Lumbard was elected to Tustin City Council in 2018 and elected Mayor in 2022. He is an attorney and contract specialist for a global engineering and construction firm, and previously served six years on Tustin's Planning Commission (twice as Chair) and as a reserve deputy with the Orange County Sheriff's Department. He holds a BA in Business Administration from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a JD from Indiana University's Maurer School of Law. He represents Tustin on the Orange County Fire Authority board and serves as an alternate to the Orange County Sanitation District and the Water Advisory Committee of Orange County. His stated priorities are public safety, balanced development, fiscal strength, and preserving Tustin's character. **Strengths:** A decade of local governance experience -- Planning Commission, then Council, then Mayor -- plus regional fire, sanitation, and water-agency roles. **Trade-offs:** The city's bio lists general priorities rather than specific 2026 commitments; his incumbency also means growth and development decisions during his tenure are partly a record he's already made. **Keep in mind:** No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Letitia Clark Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Community College Director." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their specific background, current employer, or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort across multiple search engines, Voice of OC's own site search, and an attempted OC Register fetch. **Strengths:** A community-college-director background suggests experience managing an institution and its budget, though the specific college or district isn't confirmed in this pass. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed designation. **Keep in mind:** No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for their campaign in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Sources 1. [OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Tustin section (pages 159-161 of 188, downloaded directly and parsed locally with pypdf since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Mayor (2 qualified candidates) and Member, City Council District 3 (2) as the city's two November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [City of Tustin -- City Council page: confirms the Council is "composed of a Mayor and four Council Members," lists the current five (Mayor Austin Lumbard, Mayor Pro Tem Ray Schnell, and Council Members Ryan Gallagher, Lee K. Fink, John Nielsen), and links each member's individual biography page](https://www.tustinca.org/482/City-Council) 3. [City of Tustin -- Mayor Austin Lumbard official biography: BA Business Administration (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), JD (Indiana University Maurer School of Law); attorney/contract specialist for a global engineering and construction firm; six years on Tustin's Planning Commission (twice Chair); former OC Sheriff's Department reserve deputy; elected to Council 2018, Mayor 2022; stated priorities: public safety, balanced development, fiscal strength, preserving Tustin's character](https://www.tustinca.org/499/Mayor-Austin-Lumbard) ## The rest of the ballot Mayor of Tustin 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 Tustin — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/tustin-mayor (sources last retrieved August 31, 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.