{"id":518002,"date":"2026-11-04T06:58:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T06:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/518002\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T06:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T06:58:18","slug":"bakersfield-voters-cast-ballots-for-city-council-ward-1-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/518002\/","title":{"rendered":"Bakersfield voters cast ballots for City Council Ward 1 seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) &#8212; Polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday and voters are now awaiting the final results that will decide Bakersfield&#8217;s next Ward 1 council member.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As of 9:59 p.m., incumbent Eric Arias is leading the poll by nearly 10% against challenger Mercy Pena.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Arias was first elected to the Bakersfield City Council in 2020 in a partial term before being reelected in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In his reelection bid, Arias said he wanted to focus on crime, illegal dumping and homelessness in Ward 1, as he currently sits on the council&#8217;s Homelessness Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Arias also serves as President &amp; CEO for United Way of Central Eastern California.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pena, a Bakersfield native, ran her campaign looking to focus on public safety, homelessness and sewer rate reform across the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pena also serves as one of the Trustees for the Greenfield Union School District, a role she has been in since 2024. Serving District Area C, her term will be up in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) &#8212; Polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday and voters are now awaiting the final results&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-518002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518002","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=518002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}