Ashleigh Aitken jumped out to an early lead for Anaheim mayor while Natalie Rubalcava pulled ahead for the District 3 council seat in early returns released shortly after the close of polls Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Big decisions lie ahead for the Anaheim<\/a> City Council and voters are deciding the roster of elected officials who could govern some of that decision-making.<\/p>\n LIVE ELECTION RESULTS: See a chart of the latest vote counts<\/a><\/p>\n Mayor\u00a0Aitken<\/a> is fending off challenges from newcomers Alfredo Rodriguez<\/a>, a general manager at a local environmental services company, and physician Imran Sharief<\/a> for the at-large seat that leads Orange County\u2019s most populous city of some 350,000 residents.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThis is going to be a high turnout election, which is a wonderful thing for Anaheim and our democracy,\u201d Aitken said in a text Tuesday night shortly after the polls closed.<\/p>\n \u201cAnaheim residents came out to vote in our election because they care about our city\u2019s future. They chose our neighborhoods over the noise,\u201d she said. \u201cDecisions are made by those who show up! I\u2019ll always show up for Anaheim, and hope to continue my fight for our city as Mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n Voters elected Aitken to her first term in 2022, supporting her rise as the city\u2019s first female-elected mayor.<\/p>\n But Aitken\u2019s reelection bid this time around has been tainted by allegations of intoxication and that she directed racist remarks and inappropriate sexual orientation questions<\/a> at her chief of staff. The city has launched an independent investigation.<\/p>\n Aitken has since disclosed that she has an \u201cunhealthy relationship with alcohol,\u201d<\/a> for which she said she\u2019s been getting help. But she has also repeatedly denied the slurs being attributed to her.<\/p>\n Mayor contender Sharief, when results first went live Tuesday night, trailed behind Aitken and Rodriguez.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we are going to stay positive and wait on mail-in ballots,\u201d he said, adding he was hoping to connect with voters on quality of life issues, such as needs to address \u201cgraffiti, theft, car-jacking, burglary and other things.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd public safety and City Hall transparency and economy are really important questions,\u201d he added, \u201cso we\u2019ve been connecting with voters, door-to-door.\u201d<\/p>\n In the race for District 3, which represents the city\u2019s historic colony, Packing District and some 55,000 residents, incumbent Rubalcava<\/a> is facing nonprofit director Elia Renteria-Garcia<\/a> for another four-year term.<\/p>\n The Anaheim City Council is poised to make some big decisions for the city in the next few years, including when more than $120 million<\/a> will be freed up annually for spending on city needs and when councilmembers should have delivered to them an assessment on Angel Stadium\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n And, on the other side of the 5 Freeway, the $5 billion OCVibe development is rising up around the city-owned Honda Center. The next four-year term could see some early phases of the development completed, including improvements to the Honda Center and a new museum by Japan\u2019s teamLab that will be the art collective\u2019s first permanent presence in the United States.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Councilmembers Carlos Leon and Natalie Meeks were unopposed for second terms representing Districts 2 and 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ashleigh Aitken jumped out to an early lead for Anaheim mayor while Natalie Rubalcava pulled ahead for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1400,163,165,164,7,204,23387,100,611,8047,13],"class_list":["post-517920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-2026-elections","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-election","tag-election-results","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-elections","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517920","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=517920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}