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City of Watsonville · Statewide General Election

Watsonville City Council, District 5

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 Watsonville's seven district City Council seats, each elected by the voters of that district alone, for a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Santa Cruz County city of about 52,590 residents (2020 Census). Watsonville's Mayor is not separately elected -- the Council appoints one of its own members to the largely ceremonial Mayor role each December. Watsonville is a council-manager city, with an appointed City Manager handling day-to-day operations.

Incumbent Casey K. Clark, Watsonville's Mayor Pro Tempore, is seeking a second term representing City Council District 5, against challenger Angel Zuniga.

District 5 elects one member to a full 4-year term on Watsonville's seven-member City Council -- one Council Member per district, with no at-large seats. Watsonville's Mayor is not separately elected; the Council appoints one of its own members to the largely ceremonial role each December, and Clark currently holds the Mayor Pro Tempore title as the District 5 representative. Watsonville is a Santa Cruz County city of about 52,590 residents (2020 Census), governed council-manager style with an appointed City Manager handling day-to-day operations.

Clark was first elected to this seat in 2022. Zuniga qualified as his challenger per the county's own certified candidate roster and the city's own candidate page. Independent, bylined local reporting from the Pajaronian (Aug. 20, 2026) profiled both candidates directly.

Casey K. Clark

Casey Clark, 43, is the incumbent District 5 Council Member and current Mayor Pro Tempore, seeking a second term. His own candidate statement describes him as a "Watsonville City Council Member/Mental Health Advocate" who works as a mental-health professional, has served on the Pajaro Valley Arts Council, and as Treasurer for Independence Square HUD Housing (senior and disabled housing). He states his priorities as a balanced budget, infrastructure repair, pedestrian safety, youth enrichment programs, and support for small businesses. The Pajaronian's independent reporting adds that he points to a record of balanced budgets, street improvements, and upgraded streetlights, and that he envisions downtown revitalization centered on restaurants, coffee shops, and entertainment; he told the paper, "Watsonville should be able to do what Watsonville wants to do," and "I don't see us as a disadvantaged community. I see us as a very advantaged community."

Strengths

A full term of incumbency, the Council's own choice as Mayor Pro Tempore, a mental-health background relevant to public safety, and news coverage corroborating his record.

Trade-offs

No campaign-finance filing was found for him this pass.

Keep in mind

He frames Watsonville's fiscal position more optimistically than some outside characterizations ("I don't see us as a disadvantaged community") -- worth weighing against his opponent's more working-class-focused framing.

Angel Zuniga

Angel Zuniga, 42, is a lifelong Watsonville resident challenging incumbent Casey Clark for the District 5 seat. His own candidate statement describes him as an Operations Manager overseeing multi-site facilities, raising his children in Watsonville, and states his priorities as public safety, neighborhood infrastructure, a stronger local economy, and fiscal accountability at City Hall. The Pajaronian's independent reporting adds that he works as an operations manager at Americold, sits on the city's Personnel Commission, and brings 14 years of retail leadership and loss-prevention experience from Target, Kmart, and Sprint; he told the paper his working-class background and practical approach could "help solve some everyday problems," and "my approach is to be transparent and accountable. Just do the job the best I can."

Strengths

Current service on the city's Personnel Commission, 14 years of private-sector operations/leadership experience, and independent news coverage corroborating his self-described background.

Trade-offs

No prior elected office and no campaign-finance filing was found for him this pass.

Keep in mind

A first-time council candidate running explicitly on a working-class, practical-management framing against an incumbent who currently holds a Council leadership title.

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 12 cited sources

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

  • watsonville.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Watsonville -- own "November 3, 2026 Election" page: states, in the city's own words, that "the purpose of this election is to fill the four (4) expiring seats for Districts 3, 4, 5, & 7," each "for a full four-year term," with a nomination period of July 13-Aug. 7, 2026 (extendable to Aug. 12, 2026 for non-incumbent challengers to a seat an incumbent didn't file for). Contains no mention of any district's election being cancelled or its nominee appointed in lieu.
  • watsonville.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Watsonville -- own "Candidates -- November 3, 2026" page: names the certified field for all four Council districts up this cycle -- District 3: Maria Orozco (Incumbent); District 4: Kristal Salcido (Incumbent); District 5: Casey K. Clark (Incumbent), Angel Zuniga; District 7: Nancy A. Bilicich, Ed Acosta -- with each candidate's ballot designation, independently confirming the county's Contact Candidates roster exactly.
  • votescount.santacruzcountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Santa Cruz County Elections -- own "Contact Candidates" directory for the Nov. 3, 2026 election: lists, for the City of Watsonville, District 3 (Maria Orozco only), District 4 (Kristal Salcido only), District 5 (Casey Clark, Angel Zuniga), and District 7 (Ed Acosta, Nancy Bilicich), each with ballot designation and, where filed, a candidate-statement PDF link and campaign-website link. States candidate statements "are optional ... and will become public on August 13 at 5pm" and that "only those candidates who have given permission to post contact information will be included."
  • votescount.santacruzcountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Santa Cruz County Elections -- own "Appointed In Lieu" page for the Nov. 3, 2026 election: explains that for county-administered contests, "if there are the same/less number of candidates filed then there are seats open when the filing period ends, the contests will not appear on the ballot" and those candidates are appointed instead. Lists nine school/community-college-district contests resolved this way and zero City of Watsonville rows of any kind -- a negative-result check confirming both single-candidate Watsonville districts (3 and 4) are genuine, printed, on-ballot races, not appointments in lieu of an election.
  • watsonville.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Watsonville -- own "Mayor & City Council" page: confirms seven Council Members, one per district, each elected to a 4-year term, and that the Mayor is not directly elected but is "appointed each December" by the Council from among its own members. Names the current roster and each seat's term-expiration date, showing District 1 (Eduardo Montesino) and District 2 (Vanessa Quiroz-Carter) expiring Dec. 2028 (not up), District 6 (Jimmy Dutra) expiring Dec. 2028 (not up), and Districts 3 (Orozco), 4 (Salcido, sitting Mayor), 5 (Clark, sitting Mayor Pro Tempore), and 7 (Parker) all expiring Dec. 2026 (up this cycle) -- matching the four-district roster exactly.
  • watsonville.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Watsonville -- own "Fair Political Practices Commission Filings" page: names NetFile as the city's campaign-disclosure system, linking a Form 460 (Campaign Statement) portal at ssl.netfile.com/static/agency/wat/index.html and a Form 700 (Statement of Economic Interest) portal, and directs candidates to the FPPC's own site for filing rules.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)NetFile -- the City of Watsonville's real-time "Filing Log" RSS feed (agency code wat): queried directly and shows exactly one 2026-cycle campaign filing -- "Friends of Nancy Bilicich for Watsonville City Council 2026" filed FPPC Form 497 on 8/24/2026 -- plus one unrelated Form 700 filing by a city official. No filing appears for Orozco, Salcido, Clark, Zuniga, or Acosta in this window -- a negative-result check, not proof no committee exists for them. The portal's own full public search (netfile.com/public/WAT/campaign) is a client-rendered single-page application this session's fetch tools could not search for a longer filing history.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- filer searches attempted for all six Watsonville candidates (Orozco, Salcido, Clark, Zuniga, Acosta, Bilicich): every query returned an empty or blocked response consistent with Cal-Access's own Incapsula bot-detection challenge, the same block documented elsewhere in this dataset -- and Cal-Access's documented scope covers state-level filings only, which excludes local candidates in any case. Documents the absence of a reachable state-level source, not any candidate's actual finances.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Watsonville, California": used narrowly for the 2020 Census population figure (52,590) and as an independent cross-check of the city's council-manager government, seven council districts, and rotating (not directly elected) Mayor.
  • votescount.santacruzcountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Casey Clark's own filed 2026 Candidate Statement of Qualifications for Watsonville City Council District 5, filed with the Santa Cruz County Elections Department, downloaded and read directly: describes himself, age 43, as "Watsonville City Council Member/Mental Health Advocate," cites his service on the Pajaro Valley Arts Council and as Treasurer for Independence Square HUD Housing, his work as a mental-health professional, and states his priorities as a balanced budget, infrastructure repair, pedestrian safety, youth enrichment programs, and small businesses.
  • votescount.santacruzcountyca.gov (opens in a new tab)Angel Zuniga's own filed 2026 Candidate Statement of Qualifications for Watsonville City Council District 5, filed with the Santa Cruz County Elections Department, downloaded and read directly: describes himself as an Operations Manager overseeing multi-site facilities, a Watsonville resident raising his children there, and states his priorities as public safety, neighborhood infrastructure, a stronger local economy, and fiscal accountability at City Hall.
  • pajaronian.com (opens in a new tab)The Pajaronian -- Todd Guild, "Watsonville City Council District 5" (Aug. 20, 2026): independent, bylined local reporting on the Clark-Zuniga race; Clark, elected in 2022 and seeking a second term, cites a record of balanced budgets, street improvements, and streetlight upgrades and says "Watsonville should be able to do what Watsonville wants to do"; Zuniga, 42, a lifelong Watsonville resident and operations manager at Americold who serves on the city's Personnel Commission, emphasizes a working-class background and says "my approach is to be transparent and accountable."

Last updated September 2, 2026.