Not only will the country be electing a president and vice president, but voters in Ceres will be deciding on who will serve as mayor for four years in addition to a number of other races.
The ballot for the March 5 primary will include elections for the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors. The candidate filing period closed on Friday with none of the three incumbents with expiring terms being challenged.
Ceres is in District 5 which is currently represented by incumbent Channce Condit who has no opponents. In District 2, which includes Hughson, incumbent Supervisor Vito Chiesa is also unopposed. Supervisor Buck Condit in District 1 is also unopposed for re-election.
County supervisors Terry Withrow of District 3 and Mani Grewal of District 4 are not facing elections in 2024.
Congressman John Duarte, R-Modesto, will be seeking re-election for another two-year term against his 2022 political foe, Democrat Adam Gray. Other candidates are Angelina Sigala-Rosario and Phil Arballo. Duarte took the 13th district seat in 2022 in a tight race against former state Assemblyman Gray in a 67,060 to 66,496 vote outcome.
Duarte’s 13th Congressional District includes Ceres and parts of Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Merced, Madera and Fresno counties.
California will be electing a new U.S. senator to fill the seat occupied by appointee Laphonza Butler. Candidates are expected to include Democrats Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee as well as Mark Ruzon, Don J. Grundmann, Harmesh Kumar and John Rose. The Senate seat vacated by the death of Dianne Feinstein was filled by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointment of Butler who is not running for the seat.
Also on the ballot in March is the race for California State Assembly District 22 seat. Assemblyman Juan Alanis, a Republican, is being challenged by Democrat Jessica Self. The two battled for the seat in a November 2022 run-off election. Alanis defeated Self by a lopsided outcome of 60,338 (58.1%) to 43,526 (41.9%).
If no candidate receives a majority of 50 percent plus one majority, the race will go to a run-off election in November.
Alanis is a former Stanislaus County Sheriff’s deputy. Self is an attorney.
The Ceres municipal election will be held on Nov. 5. Ceres Mayor Javier Lopez is being challenged in his re-election bid by Troy Arrollo. The filing period for the race will be next summer.
Lopez was elected in November 2020 to a four-year term and has already geared up for a re-election bid with a campaign kickoff event held Oct. 7.
Arrollo, 60, the distribution/operations manager of Delicato Family Wines and son of former Ceres Mayor Louie Arrollo, is preparing his candidacy to unseat Lopez. He formally announced his candidacy on Saturday, Dec. 9 at River Oaks Golf Course & Events Center.
Arrollo has been with Delicato Winery since February 2019 and was the operations manager at E.&J. Gallo Winery from 1984 to 2017 where he ran two business units and oversaw multi-million dollar budgets. He earned his bachelor of Applied Science degree from the Univ. of Phoenix.
Lopez was elected mayor in 2020 over then Vice Mayor Bret Durossette by a 8,753 to 6,924 vote margin.
Ceres City Councilman Bret Silveira, who is also serving as the appointed vice mayor, will also face re-election in Council District 3 next November.
Ceres voters will also be deciding on a city treasurer, a seat that was won by Kayla Martinez over Sopheap Dong-Carreon in 2020.
The remaining members of the Ceres City Council – James Casey of District 1, Daniel Martinez of District 4 and Rosalinda Vierra of District 2 – don’t have elections this year.
