Candidates already lining up for Richmond’s first primary election in 2026

When voters approved Measure J in November — also known as the Richmond Election Reform Act — they established a primary voting system for city offices, meaning that a candidate for mayor or city council who gets a majority of the votes cast wins the seat and doesn’t run in the general election.

The measure was part of a campaign funded by the Richmond Police Officers Association and local trade unions. To get Measure J on the ballot, more than 15,000 signatures were gathered in the city, according to county elections officials.

Big money was also spent on the campaign by an independent committee called Richmond Votes Matters. The group spent more than half a million dollars in support of Measure J and raised about two-and-a-half times as much money as all 2024 Richmond City Council candidates combined.

Measure J replaces the city’s plurality election system, a method where general election candidates only needed to get more votes than their competitors to win.

Now city elections will be held on the same schedule as Contra Costa County elections, according to county election officials, with the first primary tentatively set for June 2026.

The new system is already fundamentally changing how candidates campaign because they’re motivated to announce their candidacies earlier, so voters know who they are before the primary. Although it’s months away, some candidates are already stating they intend to run.

City council candidates eye 2026 primary election

There are three Richmond City Council seats (districts 2, 3 and 4) and the mayor’s seat up for election in 2026.

According to Helen Nolan, the county’s assistant registrar of voters, candidates will need to be aware of new deadlines for filing to run and for submitting written statements.

Jamin Pursell, who sits on the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) steering committee and ran unsuccessfully against District 4 council member Soheila Bana in 2022, is planning to run for the seat again.

Bana confirmed to Richmondside that she will seek reelection in 2026, saying in an email that she is “excited to continue serving our community.”

Richmondside contacted Mayor Eduardo Martinez, District 2 council member Cesar Zepeda and District 3 council member Doria Robinson — whose seats will be up for election in the 2026 primary — about whether they plan to run but did not receive a response by publication time.

Shawn Dunning, who ran for mayor against Martinez in 2022 and ran for Claudia Jimenez’ District 6 seat in 2024, said he will decide in the next few months whether he will run for office again in Richmond.

“I have not totally ruled out the possibility of a 2026 mayoral run, but I’m a bit disillusioned with Richmond politics after being subject to an apparently successful SEIU-funded smear campaign against me,” he said, referencing mailers sent out in District 5 by the independent expenditure committee East Bay Working Families. The group received most of its funding from SEIU 1021, a union representing employees in local governments, nonprofit agencies, health care programs and schools throughout Northern California.

“I’m just not confident that I can win in Richmond against such dishonest and dirty tactics,” Dunning said.

Ahmad Anderson, who recently lost to Sue Wilson for the District 5 city council seat vacated by longtime Richmond politician Gayle McLaughlin, told Richmondside that he is already talking to his supporters about potentially running for mayor in 2026 and will make a decision soon.

“I have had conversations with various groups who have approached me about running for mayor. I’m listening to everybody and very much engaged in the dialogue,” Anderson said.

The new advanced schedule, he said, now forces potential mayoral candidates like himself to weigh the decision much earlier than in past years and consider whether they have enough support to win.

“It’s a big step from the standpoint that 1.) it is early and 2.) the commitment I need from folks who want to support me to know that this isn’t a race but a marathon,” he said. “Those who support me have to be able to align with what’s good for the community at large and not just themselves.”

Anderson also said he believes that he is in a space in his personal life to announce his candidacy this year if he believes he has the local support.

“The saying goes you don’t have to get ready to stay ready,” he said. “I’ve heard many people say that it is two years away, but now it is really only 12-13 months. I’m in those places and spaces that folks are talking about it and having that dialogue with me about the seriousness of my campaign. I’m open, ready and willing if the people see fit to support that.”

When asked if he thinks the primary system will create thinner margins of victory for candidates, he said it depends on who is running, citing his 2020 loss to McLaughlin in District 5 during Richmond’s first district elections, where he split the vote with Najari Smith and Mike Vasilas.

“Gayle handedly outmatched all three of us if you put all of our votes into one. We came up short so it depends on who runs,” he said.

Additionally, he said lower voter participation and a lack of properly educated voters in Richmond means races were won with tighter margins of victory, referring to the 2024 turnout and 2022 races in districts 2 and 3, which saw tight finishes.

According to county election statistics, only 19,406 voters cast ballots out of the 29,120 registered voters in the three district elections in 2024 — a turnout of about 66%.

In that 2022 District 2 race, Zepeda defeated Andrew Butt after his name was drawn from a gift bag during a tie breaker. Both Butt and Zepeda received 1,921 votes.

During the 2022 District 3 race, Robinson beat both Oscar Garcia and Corky Boozé by less than 300 votes. In that particular race, only about 3,000 of the district’s 8,505 registered voters cast ballots.

“There’s challenges in some districts about getting people out to vote,” Anderson said, while commending incoming District 1 council member Jamelia Brown’s campaign, which focused on registering voters. “People always stress the education, but it is more like awareness. What the political process is in Richmond. There are people still unaware of what district they are in.”

Challenges of primary elections

Pursell, along with other RPA members, said he tries to get progressive candidates elected by strategizing on campaign tactics and determining which issues resonate with residents. He feels that educating voters is paramount.

“We strongly push for voter education and voter outreach, and we are not going to be informing them on the primaries but (on) what values we want to see within the city of Richmond,” Pursell said.

He believes that candidates, like himself, will have the added pressure of connecting with voters prior to a primary.

“We are going to have to make sure they understand who we are in a much smaller window and try to differentiate us more quicker. Frankly, it raises the stakes quite a lot because you’re going to have to make sure there is this 50% threshold,” he said. 

If none of the candidates in the primary get the 50% majority then there’s a run-off in the general election between the top two vote getters.

Pursell said that the ability of candidates to win a race getting 50% in the primary — without having to go through a November general election — adds a new layer of complexity. The result, he said, will be that a candidate can be elected in a primary — a type of election that has historically had lower turnouts compared to general elections. This is particularly challenging in a city like Richmond where some districts already have very low voter turnout.

City to adopt Contra Costa County election schedule

Measure J puts Richmond on the same primary election schedule as Contra Costa County, which typically holds primaries in either March or June, Nolan said.

“Basically all it means is that the city is going to run their election very similarly to the way that we already run countywide and other county level elections with the primary,” she said. “Whether that’s in March, with the presidential primary, or in June with the gubernatorial primary.”

The state determines whether the primary is in March or June, she said. In Richmond’s 2026 election cycle, the primary is tentatively scheduled for June.

Historically, California held June primaries, but in 2017 switched to March primaries during presidential election years via the Prime Time Primary Act that was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown.

There will be a cost to the city as well, Nolan added.

“They are going to pay more to hold a primary. That’s guaranteed,” she said. “We would charge them their portion of the primary election, just similar to the way that we do for the general (election).”

Typically, if a city election appears on a primary ballot, the city bears the cost to consolidate its election with the county. According to Nolan, the cost would be between $2.50 to $4 per registered voter. The total cost for the primary would be between $150,000 to $210,000 total for a citywide election.

“We’ve got to charge for how many ballots this appears on because we’re then serving that number of voters with an extra page, an extra ballot card, and also the voter information guide that includes more pages, which has to also be compensated for,” she said.

Richmond City Clerk Pamela Christian was contacted multiple times over the course of one month by Richmondside for a comment on the implications of the newly adopted primary elections and how the city plans to pay for it, but she did not respond by publication time.

According to Richmond election data for the 2024 presidential primary, only 18,767 of the city’s 58,330 registered voters cast ballots — a 32% turnout.

Jason McDaniel, an election systems researcher who teaches political science at San Francisco State University, told Richmondside last summer that a primary system isn’t ideal in regards to voter turnout.

“People voting in those March and June primaries are a very different and usually much less representative subset of the electorate,” McDaniel said. 

He added that one positive result from the new system may be that it could reduce the number of candidates in a general election.

“What happens then is that people do give a little bit more attention to those two (general election) candidates, sort of, instead of having to wade through a ton of competing campaigns and claims,” he said. “I think that actually, there’s some benefits to that.”