{"id":473808,"date":"2026-10-22T21:40:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T21:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473808\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T21:40:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T21:40:38","slug":"corpus-christi-election-who-is-running-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473808\/","title":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi election: Who is running in 2026?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 election season is upon us, and in Corpus Christi<\/a>, where the city council<\/a> has been marred by deadlocks over water infrastructure, a historic suspension of its mayor, and numerous squabbles on the dais, an unprecedented number of people are vying for a chance to change the status quo.<\/p>\n

The Corpus Christi City Council includes the mayor\u2019s seat and eight councilmember seats. Of those, three are at-large positions that serve the entire city, and five are single-member districts that serve the constituents of specific parts of the city.<\/p>\n

In August, 46 people filed to run for one of the nine seats. That number has since dropped to 43 after several candidates withdrew their applications. Corpus Christi voters elect new representatives every two years, and officials can serve a maximum of four two-year terms, or eight years in office. However, a candidate who has previously served their four-term limit can seek office again after a six-year break.<\/p>\n

Seven people are vying to become Corpus Christi\u2019s top elected official, its mayor.<\/p>\n

That includes current Mayor Paulette\u00a0Guajardo, who became the first mayor in the city\u2019s history to be temporarily suspended from office earlier this year. Guajardo is currently serving her third term. But in August, after a two-week trial presided over by the other eight council members,\u00a0Guajardo was temporarily suspended<\/a>. For one month, she was barred from taking part in any city council business, including presiding over meetings or voting on any council matters. It was the first time in Corpus Christi\u2019s<\/a> 174-year history that peers suspended an elected official.<\/p>\n

Since then, two of those peers have chosen to challenge\u00a0Guajardo for the mayoral seat rather than seek re-election for their own council seats. That includes District 4 Councilwoman Kaylynn Paxson and District 5 Councilman Gil Hernandez. As mayor pro tem, Paxson presided over the council trial that resulted in Guajardo\u2019s suspension. And Hernandez was one of two councilmembers who voted to remove the mayor from office entirely.
The remaining candidates for mayor are David Ainsworth Sr., Chelise Hyatt, John Calkusic and Dave Heasely.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, two of the council\u2019s current members \u2014 at-large Councilman Roland\u00a0Barrera and District 1 Councilman Everett Roy have reached their term limits and could not run in the November 3, 2026 election. Hernandez also reached his term limit as a councilman, but that limit does not prohibit him from seeking the higher office of mayor. And District 2 Councilwoman Sylvia Campos chose not to seek re-election after just two terms in office. Campos was the only other councilmember who joined Hernandez in voting to oust Mayor Guajardo.<\/p>\n

But incumbents Mark Scott and Carolyn Vaughn are looking to hold onto their at-large council seats. Thirteen other candidates are also vying for one of the council\u2019s three at-large seats. They are: Anthem Powers,\u00a0Merida Nardone Mendoza, Scott F. Corliss, Sammy Gonzales, Zoriada Basaldu, Michael Miller, Joshua Fraederick, Willie Morales Jr., Nancy Vera, Julian Jacob Hernandez, Richard Shelton, Dan McQueen and Alex Johnson.<\/p>\n

The only other incumbent seeking re-election is District 3\u2019s Eric\u00a0Cantu, who is facing two opponents, Jessica Villarreal and Robert Rocha. A total of 18 people are running in the wide-open races for Districts 1, 2, 4 and 5, which have no incumbents. That includes District 1 candidates John Garcia, Tracy McCall, Billy Lerma, John M. Cudd and Vidal \u201cCowboy\u201d Conde; District 2 candidates Selena Guerra, Jen Allende, Isabel Araiza and Laura Flores Commons; District 4 candidates Joshua Anderson, Kristina Nelson, Stacie Garrecht and Dan Herrington; and District 5 candidates Joseph Borkouski, Kusumakar Soods, David Pena, John Hanzalik and Merida Gonzalez Forres.<\/p>\n

Early voting began on Monday. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 election season is upon us, and in Corpus Christi, where the city council has been marred…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,847,2320,820],"class_list":["post-473808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-mysanews","tag-mysasotx","tag-mysastaff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}