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City of Union City · Statewide General Election

Union City Council, District 2

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

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 one of three Union City Council seats up this cycle: city ordinances, the budget, and land use in this Alameda County city of about 70,000, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. A 4-year term, Dec. 8, 2026-Dec. 10, 2030. Union City switched from at-large to district-based Council elections in November 2020; city ordinance limits the Mayor and Councilmembers to three consecutive terms in the same office.

Vice Mayor Jaime Patino, District 2's sitting Councilmember, is seeking reelection against one challenger, first-time candidate Victor Lopez Pulido.

This person would hold one of three Union City Council seats up this cycle: city ordinances, the budget, and land use in this Alameda County city of about 70,000, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. A 4-year term, Dec. 8, 2026-Dec. 10, 2030.

Union City switched from at-large to district-based Council elections in November 2020. City ordinance limits the Mayor and Councilmembers to three consecutive terms in the same office; partial terms don't count toward the limit, and a former officeholder may run again after sitting out two years.

Jaime Patino

Union City's sitting District 2 Councilmember and Vice Mayor, per the city's own roster page, seeking reelection; his filed ballot designation is "Councilmember/Finance Manager." The city's own candidate-statements page describes him as a lifelong Union City resident emphasizing fiscal responsibility and public safety, and links a campaign site (patinoforunioncity.com) not independently verified by this dataset. His campaign committee, Patino for City Council 2026, reported $19,678 in monetary contributions plus a $1,000 loan from Patino himself (dated 4/10/2026, still outstanding in full) for the Jan. 1-June 30, 2026 period, against $14,839.54 in expenditures, ending the period with $6,059.65 cash on hand.

Strengths

Sitting Vice Mayor with a full term already in the District 2 seat, and the largest reported H1 2026 fundraising total of the two candidates in this race.

Trade-offs

This dataset found no independent (non-official, non-campaign-finance) reporting evaluating his record on the Council.

Keep in mind

$1,000 of his reported total is a loan from himself, not outside support -- his $19,678 in itemized monetary contributions more directly reflects broader donor backing.

Victor Lopez Pulido

A first-time candidate; his filed ballot designation is "Legal Advocate/Translator." The city's own candidate-statements page describes him as a first-generation college graduate focused on affordable housing and cost of living, and links a campaign site (vic4unioncity.com) not independently verified by this dataset. This dataset found no further independent profile or news coverage beyond that statement. His campaign committee, Committee to Elect Victor Daniel Lopez Pulido for City Council 2026, reported $11,780 in monetary contributions and $1,944.79 in expenditures for the first half of 2026, ending the period with $9,883.21 cash on hand.

Strengths

A real fundraising total for a first-time challenger, and a stated focus (affordable housing, cost of living) distinct from the incumbent's.

Trade-offs

No independent (non-official, non-campaign-finance) reporting on his candidacy was found in this pass.

Keep in mind

this dataset relied on his own campaign statement and filings; his platform claims were not independently fact-checked.

Source review: Strong (85/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • alamedacountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Alameda County Registrar of Voters -- official Candidate List system (electionId 260, "General Election - 11/03/2026 (Official)"), queried directly via its own JSON/HTML API (POST /rov_app/candidatelist/) for all three Union City races (categoryId 600, raceIds 134-136): For Member Of City Council #2, Union City (Jaime Patino, Victor Lopez Pulido); #3 (Jeff Wang, Cheris Crocker-Root); #4 (Vipan S. Bajwa, Sarabjit Kaur Cheema, Qasim Lodhi, Ann Yap-Jequinto). Names ballot designations verbatim as filed: "Councilmember/Finance Manager" (Patino), "Legal Advocate/Translator" (Lopez Pulido), "Incumbent" (Wang), "Financial Asset Manager" (Crocker-Root), "City Commissioner/Accountant" (Bajwa), "High School Teacher" (Cheema), "Software Engineer/Father" (Lodhi), "Planning Commissioner/Caregiver" (Yap-Jequinto). The system's own "Incumbent" field reads "N" for every Union City candidate here too, including Patino and Wang -- this dataset does not treat that field as reliable and instead confirms incumbency independently against the City of Union City's own roster page (see union-city-clerk-roster-2026).
  • unioncityca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Union City -- "November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election" overview page: states in its own words that three City Council seats are up (District 2, District 3, District 4), each seat's term running Dec. 8, 2026-Dec. 10, 2030, and quotes the city's term-limit ordinance (Municipal Code Chapter 2.07): three consecutive terms in the same office, partial terms don't count, and a former officeholder may run again after sitting out two years. Links the city's candidates/filing-status page, candidate-statements page, and its NetFile campaign-finance portal, all used as separate sources below.
  • unioncityca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Union City -- "Candidates and Filing Status" page: lists each district's qualified candidates by filing and qualifying date (District 2: Patino filed 8/3, qualified 8/4; Lopez Pulido filed 8/7, qualified 8/9. District 3: Wang filed and qualified 7/27; Crocker-Root filed and qualified 8/4. District 4: Cheema filed 8/10, qualified 8/11; Lodhi filed and qualified 8/5; Bajwa filed and qualified 8/7; Yap-Jequinto filed 8/6, qualified 8/7) and states all are "listed in ballot order per the randomized alphabet drawing conducted August 13, 2026" -- the option order used throughout this dataset. Also names two people issued District 3 nomination papers who did not file them: Allan Samson (issued 7/22/2026) and Kashif Wasim (issued 7/24/2026); neither is a candidate here.
  • unioncityca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Union City -- "Candidate Statements" page: real, candidate-submitted biographical statements for all eight 2026 Council candidates, several linking a personal campaign website (not independently verified by this dataset). Notable detail beyond bare ballot designations: Sarabjit Kaur Cheema is a former New Haven Unified School District Board member (2010-2022); Vipan S. Bajwa is a local Chamber of Commerce Vice President and nonprofit board chair; Ann Yap-Jequinto founded the nonprofit Rodhi's Hope and has lived in the city since 1977; Cheris Crocker-Root has 17 years of district residency plus Park Commission and Parks & Trails Commission leadership experience.
  • unioncityca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Union City -- "Mayor & City Council" page: names Jaime Patino as District 2's sitting Councilmember and Vice Mayor, and Jeff Wang as District 3's sitting Councilmember; District 4's sitting Councilmember, Scott Sakakihara, is not on the county's certified candidate list for District 4 -- the basis for treating that seat as open. Also names Mayor Gary Singh (not up this cycle -- Union City's eight-race City category on the county's own candidate list has no Union City Mayor race at all) and District 1's Lance Nishihira (not up this cycle either).
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Union City, California article -- 2020 census population (70,143); incorporated Jan. 26, 1959 (combining the communities of Alvarado and Decoto); council-manager government; states the city "switched from citywide elections to districts" on November 3, 2020; states the mayor and council members serve 4-year terms with a 3-consecutive-term limit, cross-checked against the city's own election page's identical term-limit language.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)City of Union City's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (agency code UNION, linked directly from the city's own election page), queried directly via its own QuickNameSearch and filings/byCandidate JSON API for all eight 2026 candidates, with each available candidate's most recent H1 2026 FPPC Form 460 downloaded directly via the portal's own CampaignDocuments/download endpoint and read for its actual reported totals. Real H1 2026 totals (monetary contributions raised / total expenditures, this period): Jaime Patino $19,678 plus a $1,000 loan from Patino himself (dated 4/10/2026, still outstanding in full) / $14,839.54, ending with $6,059.65 cash on hand; Victor Lopez Pulido $11,780 / $1,944.79, ending with $9,883.21 cash on hand; Jeff Wang $30,819 / $3,331.10, ending with $27,487.90 cash on hand; Cheris Crocker-Root $5,520 raised this period (plus an $11,283.16 beginning balance carried from H2 2025) / $3,295.78, ending with $13,507.38 cash on hand; Sarabjit Kaur Cheema no Form 460 on file yet, only a Form 410/501; Qasim Lodhi no committee yet, only a Form 501; Vipan S. Bajwa $0 monetary plus a $2,000 loan from Bajwa himself (dated 5/27/2026, still outstanding in full) / $0, ending with $2,000 cash on hand; Ann Yap-Jequinto $800 (from her treasurer, Martin Jequinto) plus a $3,000 loan from Yap-Jequinto herself (her own Schedule A lists her occupation as Classroom Assistant IV, New Haven Unified School District) / $3,464.99, ending with $385.01 cash on hand and $3,050 in outstanding loan debt.

Last updated September 1, 2026.