The Long Beach City Clerk has officially certified 36 of the 40 candidates seeking office in the 2022 local races, which include five council district seats, mayor, city prosecutor and city attorney and prosecutor.

The deadline for individuals to declare their candidates for the June 2022 primary election in city races that don’t include an incumbent was Wednesday, March 16. The deadline for candidates in races that did include an incumbent was Friday, March 11.

As of Thursday morning, the Long Beach city clerk’s office has certified 36 of the 40 individuals who filed for one of the nine offices up for election, meaning candidates have submitted the required signatures and documents to appear on the ballot.

In the city races that don’t include incumbents—mayor, city attorney and council districts 3, 5 and 9—not all of the potential candidates have qualified to run on the ballot, according to the city clerk’s office.

  • Six candidates qualified for the mayor’s race: Joshua Rodriguez, Raul Cedillo, Rex Richardson, Deb Mozer, Suzie Price and Franklin Sims.
  • For the city attorney’s race, Dawn McIntosh and Gerrie Schipske qualified for the ballot.
  • In the 3rd District council race, six candidates qualified for the ballot: Greg Magnuson, Mark Guillen, Kristina Duggan, Nima Novin, Kailee Caruso and Deborah Castro.
  • The 5th District council race includes four candidates: Jeannine Bedard, Megan Kerr, Linda Valdez and Ian Patton.
  • The 9th District council race also has four candidates, including Raul Nario, Joni Ricks-Oddie, Gus Orozco and Ginny Gonzales.

In the city races that include incumbents—city prosecutor, city auditor and council districts 1 and 7—all of the potential candidates have qualified to run on the ballot, according to the city clerk’s office.

  • Two candidates have qualified for the city auditor’s race: incumbent Laura Doud and Daniel Miles.
  • For the city prosecutor’s race, the candidates include incumbent Doug Haubert, George Moyer and Nicholas Liddi III.
  • In the 1st District council race, five candidates have qualified to run: incumbent Mary Zendejas, Lee Charley, Steven Estrada, Zack Deere and Mariela Salgado.
  • The 7th District council race includes four qualified candidates, including incumbent Roberto Uranga, Alejandro Cortez, Raul Jallorina and Carlos Ovalle.

Four individuals submitted their statements of intentions to run office but then didn’t get qualified, according to Assistant City Clerk Allison Bunma. This was because they didn’t pull follow-up nomination papers or didn’t submit them by the deadline, said Bunma.

The city clerk’s office has not yet finalized the ballot listing of the qualified candidates. The City Council is scheduled to take up a resolution approving the ballot listing of the qualified candidates at its March 22 meeting.

All qualified candidates will be eligible to participate in the Long Beach Post’s 2022 Compare Your Candidates tool, in which each candidate will answer the same series of questions about political issues and policy matters pertinent to their respective office. Questionnaires for the current election cycle will begin going out to candidates later this month.

Anthony Pignataro is an investigative reporter and editor for the Long Beach Post. He has close to three decades of experience in journalism leading numerous investigations and long-form journalism projects for the OC Weekly and other publications. He joined the Post in May 2021.