The 2026 Austin City Council elections won’t take place for 283 days but eight challengers have already appointed campaign treasurers to run for one of the five council seats that will be on the November 3rd ballot. One of those eight said he is withdrawing.
The terms of five incumbents will end in January 2027. Four of them are seeking another four-year term. In the aggregate, those four incumbents are sitting on more than $430,000 in cash on hand, as of the campaign finance reports filed January 15th. Collectively the challengers have nearly $359,000 in cash.
According to information published by the Austin City Clerk, individual campaign contributions to City Council candidates are capped at $450 per election per person, meaning $450 in the general election and $450 if involved in a runoff. Aggregate contributions from donors outside of Austin are capped at $47,000 for the general election and $31,000 for any runoff election.
A candidate must have resided continuously in the district for at least six months before the August 17th deadline to file for a place on the ballot. According to the City Clerk’s website, the first day that a candidate can file for a place on the ballot is July 20th. Which means that to be eligible to run for a council office in November 2026, a candidate must establish a residency in a council district by no later than February 17th.
District 1
Natasha Harper-Madison, the sole Black member of the City Council, is term-limited. When asked if she would seek reelection, she issued this statement: “Every council member brings a unique lived experience to this role, and that perspective shapes how they serve the district. New energy and new ideas will help drive us forward. In this final year, I remain laser-focused on delivering for District 1 and ensuring a strong, thoughtful transition so the next council member is set up for success.”
Two new Black candidates have jumped in with hopes of succeeding the incumbent.
Alexandria Anderson is a 39-year-old woman who in 2017 retired from a world-class career in track and field, specializing in the 100- and 200-meter sprints. She uses her athletic experience as a certified personal trainer in her business, Essential Fitness ATX.
The Emerge Texas website states she is active in the Austin Neighborhoods Council and the Martin Luther King Neighborhood Association. The City of Austin’s Community Registry lists Anderson as the association’s president.
Anderson has owned her home on Cometa Street in District 1 since November 2014.
Steven Brown, 41, states on his campaign website that he was born and raised in East Austin. His LinkedIn page states that he works as a clinical specialist with Medtronic, a medical technology company.
More importantly for his election bid, Brown was co-chair of Save Austin Now, along with Matt Mackowiak, who also chairs the Travis County Republican Party. Brown called after the article was published to say that he quit that position after Proposition Q was defeated. Brown was involved in the More Affordable Austin coalition that in November 2024 defeated Proposition Q with 63 percent of the 172,327 votes cast. If successful, Prop Q would have added a permanent tax increase of 5 cents per $100 valuation.
Of concern, however, is that Brown listed a residence address on Single Shot Drive in District 1, but since September 2019 he has owned a home, with a homestead exemption, on Ronee Leah Drive in Austin’s two-mile ETJ in eastern Travis County near SH 130 that is outside the city limits.
In that sense he is emulating the tactic that Harper-Madison used in her 2018 election bid. She and her then-husband owned a homestead in District 6 but she listed an East Austin address when running.
District 3
Jose Velasquez is the sole incumbent who has not yet drawn a challenger. He has more than $32,000 in cash on hand—far less than the other three incumbents seeking reelection.
In his 2022 election campaign, Velasquez raised $168,000 and spent $158,000 while competing against five other candidates for the open District 3 seat left by the departure of Sabino Pio” Renteria.
Velasquez lists his residence address on Willow Street in East Austin. Appraisal district records show that the property is a homestead owned by Yolanda Perkins, who acquired the property in November 1976. He did not respond to a text message this afternoon asking about his relation to Perkins.
Velasquez won a December 2022 runoff against Daniela Silva with 53 percent of the votes.
District 5
Ryan Alter is sitting on more than $115,000 for his reelection campaign but that pales in comparison to one challenger’s bankroll. Alter reported having almost that much on hand in July 2025 and raised less than $7,000 in the last six months.
Alter, 35, a Harvard educated lawyer, was damaged by the Austin American-Statesman’s report last November on how he spent money allocated for his council office budget. That spending included a $2,500 payment to the Texas Bar Foundation for a lifetime membership. The Statesman in July 2025 reported he had used a city credit card to pay for nearly $1,200 in solo meals. Alter’s response was to acknowledge that he “made choices that harmed the trust and reputation of city government.”
Like any sinner seeking repentance, Alter has seen the light, or felt the heat, and is “calling for serous reforms to City spending.” He also called for cutting council office budgets by 8.5 percent and redirecting “those funds to independent audits of city performance and spending.”
Alter lists his homestead address as a house on Gallop Cove that he bought in February 2022.
Alter spent more than $206,000 in competing against five others in his 2022 election campaign. He defeated Stephanie Bazan in a runoff by netting 60 percent of the votes.
David Weinberg, 48, is a political consultant turned full-time candidate. He says he served as executive director of the Texas League for Conservation Voters 2009-2015 and as a consultant on voting rights for the Brennan Center for Justice 2021-2025. He was a campaign consultant via his company, Weinberg Strategies LLC, on the Laura Morrison for mayor campaign in 2018 and was paid $22,250 for that work, according to her campaign finance reports. Morrison was one of six who ran against incumbent Mayor Steve Adler in 2018. She placed second but lost that race by 40 points.
Weinberg owned a home on Norris Drive in District 5 for 16 years but currently rents a home in the district on Forest Bend Drive.
Weinberg faults the incumbent for doing a poor job of providing constituent services for district residents and for championing unpopular causes like Proposition Q to raise property taxes. The challenger said he helped lead opposition to the Zilker Vision Plan, which the city manager scuttled in August 2023 due to the backlash.
He has loaned his campaign $275,000 to run against Alter. Weinberg has spent little so far and has more than $270,000 in cash on hand.
Dumping big bucks into one’s campaign hasn’t always panned out. Jennifer Virden loaned her 2022 mayoral campaign $300,000 more than a year before the election and wound up placing a distant third in the general election. But, after missing the runoff, she recouped $220,000 of the loan.
For more information visit Weinberg’s campaign website.
Farrah Abraham, 34, may be the wildest of wild cards in recent history. Her Wikipedia page lists her as an “American reality television personality, singer, pornographic actress, and writer.” She was in the cast of an MTV reality show, Teen Mom, that ran from 2009 to 2021. She doesn’t have a campaign website yet but has a personal website that displays a popup ad for her campaign.
She initially appointed a treasurer January 13th to run for mayor, then realized that job’s not on the ballot in 2026, and re-filed January 15th to run for District 5. She had raised no funds as of that day.
The Bulldog has been unable to verify that she is eligible to run in District 5. She listed her mailing address as 512 W. MLK, which is not in District 5. Her voter registration address is listed at 6200 Harwin Lane, which appears to be her father’s address, located in District 2. In an exchange of text-messages, she declined to provide her home address for verification that she actually lives in District 5, despite being informed that she will have to list her permanent residence address on the ballot application form due in August.
Appraisal district records show that in November 2013 she bought a house on Rocky Coast Drive near Lake Travis in Lakeway and sold it in December 2017.
The Austin American-Statesman on January 21st published an article that also questioned Abraham’s candidacy based on her residence address.
District 8
Paige Ellis, 40, is term-limited but plans to get on the ballot again through the option of gathering signatures. Austin City Code, Article II, Section 5(C) states: “A person subject to a term limit with respect to an office may become a candidate for the office and serve if elected if the person’s application to be a candidate for the office is accompanied by a petition requesting that the person be authorized to be a candidate and the petition is signed by at least five per cent of the qualified voters of the territory from which the office is elected.”
Ellis is not the first to take advantage of the option to petition and serve beyond term limits. In 2002, incumbent Council Members Jackie Goodman, Beverly Griffith, and Daryl Slusher all completed successful petition drives and got on the ballot again. Goodman and Slusher won reelection without runoffs. Griffith qualified for a runoff but conceded to Betty Dunkerley. In 2018, Council Member Kathie Tovo also took the petition route to victory without a runoff.
Ellis has contributions totaling almost $74,000 so far in her reelection campaign and has more than $100,000 in her campaign war chest.
Ellis lives in a condominium on Walsh Tarleton Lane, according to the Personal Financial Statement that she filed with the city covering activity in 2024.
In 2022 Ellis won her second term election to the District 8 seat without a runoff, gathering 58 percent of the votes in the general election and spending $147,000.
She has drawn a much stronger opponent in her bid for a third term.
Selena Xie, 38, is a commander in the Austin EMS and president of the Austin EMS Association, having served as a paramedic for more than a decade, including years in District 8.
She was prominently featured in the Bulldog’s coverage of EMS performance during the massive February 2021 winter storm.
Xie raised more than $61,000 in contributions through the end of 2025 and loaned her campaign $25,000. She has $72,000 in cash on hand. Perhaps just as importantly, her website lists more than 150 individual endorsements, including political consultants David Butts, who has guided winning campaigns for decades; and Joe Cascino, who ran Kirk Watson’s mayoral campaign.
Xie has owned a condominium homestead on Silvermine Drive in District 8 since September 2024.
District 9
Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, 35, is by far the best funded incumbent at this point, with nearly $182,000 in cash on hand. Incidentally, that’s almost exactly the same amount he spent in winning his first term in 2022. He ran against seven others that year and defeated Linda Guerrero in a runoff by netting 51 percent of the votes.
Qadri has owned a homestead on Moreno Street in the Mueller development since December 2023.
So far, Qadri faces minimal opposition in his bid for a second term.
Ard Ardalan raised $7,600 but when contacted by the Bulldog said he was not going to run after all.
Dave Thandini appears to be a University of Texas student who lists his address in the Jester Dorm. But UT’s online records of attendance and degrees does not list him. He appointed himself campaign treasurer May 14th and has raised no money. He does not appear to be a registered voter.
Richard Heyman, 58, is the most well known of Qadri’s opponents. He was on the UT campus during a pro-Palestinian protest of the Israel-Hamas war in April 2024. Videos taken at the scene showed him yelling at a law enforcement officer and grabbing the officer’s bicycle. He was later charged with interfering with public duties, a Class B misdemeanor, according to the initial coverage by the Austin American-Statesman. A Texas Tribune article published May 10, 2024, said that Heyman had been employed as a lecturer at the university for 18 years and was fired in the wake of the incident. An Austin Free Press article on March 13, 2025, stated that a judge dropped the charge in January 2025.
Heyman raised $8,500 in contributions for his campaign and had $7,600 on hand at the end of December 2025, barely 4 percent of the cash in Alter’s stash.
He has owned a home in the district on Lafayette Avenue since 2006.
This article was updated at 10:05am January 23, 2026, to note that Steven Brown is no longer a co-chair of Save Austin Now. Also to correct David Weinberg’s age and the nature of the work he did for the Brennan Center for Justice.
Ken Martin has been a reporter and editor in the Austin area since 1981. He is the only active journalist who has worked full-time for publications in the Austin-area’s Travis, Williamson and Hays counties. His aggressive reporting twice garnered first-place national awards for investigative reporting. Both of those projects resulted in successful criminal prosecutions.
Leave a Reply