{"id":356923,"date":"2026-06-11T22:59:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356923\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:59:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:59:48","slug":"what-happens-to-sacramento-city-council-if-vang-guerra-win-other-elected-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356923\/","title":{"rendered":"What happens to Sacramento City Council if Vang, Guerra win other elected seats?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a good chance the next Sacramento City Council will consist of the same nine faces after its swearing-in ceremony in December.<\/p>\n

Based on vote counts released Tuesday<\/a>, two incumbents are all but certain to serve another term, another has won outright after running unopposed and the fourth continues to hold a strong enough edge over her opponent to avoid a November runoff.<\/p>\n

Despite those likely outcomes, there\u2019s another prospect for significant turnover: Council members Mai Vang and Eric Guerra could win their respective races for California\u2019s 7th Congressional District and the District 1 seat on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n

Vang surged ahead<\/a> in ballot returns Tuesday evening, poised to secure the top spot going into the November runoff against fellow Democrat and longtime incumbent Doris Matsui. But her lead is a slim one, and about 40% of the primary votes went to other candidates.<\/p>\n

Guerra is advancing to the general election alongside epidemiologist Flojaune Cofer, though Guerra trails her by about 16 percentage points. About 25% of the vote went to candidates that will not advance.<\/p>\n

With another five months of campaigning to go until voters issue their final decisions, each council member has a competitive chance to ascend the city in the middle of their terms. Guerra and Vang were each last re-elected in 2024, with their terms ending in 2028.<\/p>\n

If elected to new offices, they would both be sworn into roles in the first week of 2027, leaving their seats behind the Sacramento dais vacant.<\/p>\n

What happens if Vang and Guerra vacate their council seats?<\/p>\n

If either or both sitting council members resign to take another office, the seats would be filled via a special election called by the City Council, according to the city\u2019s charter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The city may only appoint an interim council member if there is a regularly scheduled election within one year of the seat becoming vacant.<\/p>\n

It is not within the city\u2019s best interest to keep the seats vacant for too long since constituent services, a key part of each city council member\u2019s job, would be transferred to the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

When would the special election take place?<\/p>\n

The date of the election is up to council discretion as there is no regularly scheduled election in 2027. Assistant City Clerk Wendy Klock-Johnson said that it is too early to begin discussing a potential special election date.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not anywhere near that at this time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

How much would the special election cost?<\/p>\n

The cost of a special election is determined based on the number of ballots the county needs to send out, according to Sacramento County Elections Office spokesperson Ken Casparis.<\/p>\n

If Guerra leaves for the county seat, a special election would cost around $341,000. If Vang lands in Washington D.C., an election in her district would cost $331,000. In the case they are both elected to new posts, the consolidated cost of both elections would amount to about $589,000, according to county estimates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a good chance the next Sacramento City Council will consist of the same nine faces after its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[145376,32662,107708,21872,141903,31172,121,15950,123,122],"class_list":["post-356923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-californias-7th-congressional-district","tag-council-member","tag-council-members","tag-eric-guerra","tag-guerra","tag-mai-vang","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-city-council","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}