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City of Vacaville · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Vacaville

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On the ballot

Vacaville's Mayor presides over City Council meetings, represents the city publicly, and votes alongside the city's six district councilmembers on the budget, ordinances, and land use. Unlike the district council seats, the Mayor is elected citywide (at-large), to a 4-year term; this November's ballot also includes three of the six council districts (2, 4, and 6) -- the half of the council whose elections align with gubernatorial-cycle years, per Wikipedia's independent confirmation of the city's staggered structure. Districts 1, 3, and 5 align with presidential-cycle years instead and are not up this November. Vacaville is a roughly 102,400-resident Solano County city (102,386 per the 2020 Census). This dataset could not independently confirm the city's form of government (e.g., whether an appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations) or any term-limit rule for either office, since the City of Vacaville's own site returned an access block to every automated fetch attempt in this pass.

Sitting Mayor John Carli did not file for reelection, leaving an open seat. Two candidates qualified: sitting Vacaville Councilmember Sarah Chapman and Roy Stockton. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright -- no runoff.

Vacaville's Mayor presides over City Council meetings, represents the city publicly, and votes alongside the city's six district councilmembers on the budget, ordinances, and land use. Unlike the district council seats, the Mayor is elected citywide (at-large), to a 4-year term; this November's ballot also includes three of the six council districts (2, 4, and 6) -- the half of the council whose elections align with gubernatorial-cycle years. Districts 1, 3, and 5 align with presidential-cycle years instead and are not up this November. Vacaville is a roughly 102,400-resident Solano County city (102,386 per the 2020 Census). This dataset could not independently confirm the city's form of government (e.g., whether an appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations) or any term-limit rule for either office, since the City of Vacaville's own site returned an access block to every automated fetch attempt in this pass.

The county's own Candidate Filed Log marks this contest ON THE BALLOT, not an uncontested appointment; both candidates qualified before the regular nomination deadline (Chapman July 27, Stockton July 31, 2026), so this dataset treats the race as settled and genuinely contested.

Sarah Chapman

Sarah Chapman is a sitting Vacaville City Councilmember running for the open Mayor's seat; the county's own candidate list prints her ballot designation as "Vacaville City Councilmember." Her own campaign site describes her as "Dr. Sarah Chapman," the city's sitting Vice Mayor, a Vacaville resident of nearly five decades and a 28-plus-year educator, with past service on the Solano Community College governing board. It states her campaign priorities as neighborhood-safety partnerships and family- and youth-focused community services, and lists endorsements from Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District board member Jack Flynn and two named community activists.

Strengths

Sitting Vice Mayor and Councilmember, giving her a checkable record on the current council; decades of described residency and a multi-decade education career, per her own campaign site.

Trade-offs

The only source describing her background and platform beyond the bare county filing is her own campaign site -- self-published campaign material, not independently verified by this dataset.

Keep in mind

This dataset could not reach Vacaville's own site in this pass, so no independent account of her specific votes or record on the council -- good or bad -- could be checked beyond what's here.

Roy Stockton

Roy Stockton is challenging for the open Mayor's seat; the county's own candidate list prints his ballot designation as "Councilmember / Sheriff's Sergeant." That designation could not be resolved to any actual current office: Solano County's own Candidate Filed Log, which comprehensively covers every jurisdiction in the county with a 2026 race, does not list him as an incumbent or candidate anywhere else in its 15 pages. No independent news profile, campaign website, or civic-board record was found for him in this pass.

Strengths

No independent source describes a specific record, background, or platform for him beyond his name and ballot designation on the county's certified candidate list.

Trade-offs

His ballot designation references a "Councilmember" role this dataset could not identify or verify against any other Solano County jurisdiction's 2026 candidate roster.

Keep in mind

A thin public profile here reflects what could be found in this pass -- Vacaville's own site, The Reporter, and repeated general searches all failed to surface further information -- not a judgment about his candidacy.

Source review: Strong (83/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.

Review note: Sarah Chapman's own campaign site (sarahchapmanformayor.com), "Dr. Sarah Chapman for Vacaville Mayor 2026": her biography (sitting Vice Mayor, Vacaville resident of nearly five decades, 28-plus years in education, past Solano Community College governing-board member) and platform (neighborhood-safety partnerships, family/youth services) in her own words, plus three named endorsements may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • content.solanocounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Solano County Registrar of Voters -- "Candidate Filed Log - November 3, 2026 General Election" (AS OF 8/20/2026; page generated 8/27/2026 9:31 AM; re-downloaded fresh this session, not reused from the county-level shard's own 2026-08-29 retrieval): the "City of Vacaville" section lists Mayor and City Council Districts 2, 4, and 6, each candidate's ballot designation, incumbent flag, and filing dates -- given a jurisdiction-prefixed key distinct from the county-level shard's own "solano-candidate-log-2026" citation of this same document.
  • solanocounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Solano County Registrar of Voters -- "Current Election Information" page, checked live: links the identical Candidate Filed Log PDF under the same "(as of 08/20/2026)" label, confirming no newer version had been posted since the county-level shard's own 2026-08-29 retrieval of the same file.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- Vacaville, California: cited for the city's structure ("a seven-member City Council with six elected by district, and one mayor elected at large," each serving a four-year term, with Mayor and Districts 2, 4, 6 up in gubernatorial-election years and Districts 1, 3, 5 up in presidential-election years), current Mayor John Carli (elected 2022), and the 2020 Census population (102,386) -- its Government section carries no detail on a city manager, charter status, or term limits, so none of that is asserted here.
  • cityofvacaville.gov (opens in a new tab)A documented site-access gap, not a claim about any candidate's background or the city's actual structure: the City of Vacaville's own site (cityofvacaville.gov) returned HTTP 403 to every automated fetch attempt this session -- the root domain and every guessed elections/city-clerk path -- preventing this dataset from reading the city's own notice of election, council term-limit rule, government form, or campaign-finance disclosure location.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result campaign-finance search: California's Cal-Access filer search (cal-access.sos.ca.gov) returned a blank result page for every one of the eight candidates' names queried this session. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these candidates, not any of their actual finances; Cal-Access also covers only state-level committees, not local city-council or mayoral candidates, in any case.
  • campaign.solanocounty.com (opens in a new tab)Solano County's own "CampaignDocs eRetrieval" campaign-disclosure portal home page: states directly that its database "does not include state-level filings (directed to Cal-Access) or city filings (requiring contact with individual City Clerks)" -- confirming this county-run portal does not cover any Vacaville city candidate regardless of the access gap documented above.
  • sarahchapmanformayor.com (opens in a new tab)Sarah Chapman's own campaign site (sarahchapmanformayor.com), "Dr. Sarah Chapman for Vacaville Mayor 2026": her biography (sitting Vice Mayor, Vacaville resident of nearly five decades, 28-plus years in education, past Solano Community College governing-board member) and platform (neighborhood-safety partnerships, family/youth services) in her own words, plus three named endorsements.

Last updated September 1, 2026.