AustinMayor.com — Independent Reference for the Austin Mayor & City Council Races

Mayor of Austin

Kirk Watson — two-time mayor, current term through January 2029.

Austin’s mayor is elected citywide on a nonpartisan ballot for a four-year term, with a two-term limit. The mayor sets the council agenda, votes as one of eleven members, represents the city externally, and appoints the City Manager who runs day-to-day operations.

Kirk Watson

56th Mayor · Jan 2025 – Jan 2029

Lawyer, four-time political officeholder, and the only person in Austin’s history elected mayor in two non-consecutive tenures (1997–2001 and 2023–present). Between his mayoral runs he served fourteen years in the Texas Senate, ran for Texas Attorney General, and was the founding dean of the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs.

Full profile →

The November 3, 2026 Ballot

What’s up for election in 2026.

Austin elects its council members on staggered four-year terms, so roughly half the seats are on the ballot every even-numbered year. The mayor is not on the 2026 ballot — Mayor Watson’s current term runs through January 2029. The council districts last elected in November 2022 are up again on November 3, 2026:

District 1

East Austin

Incumbent: Natasha Harper-Madison (since 2019)

District 1 profile →

District 3

East & South Austin

Incumbent: José Velásquez (since 2023)

District 3 profile →

District 5

South Austin

Incumbent: Ryan Alter (since 2023)

District 5 profile →

District 9

Downtown / Central

Incumbent: Zohaib Qadri (since 2023)

Declared challenger: Katie Kam

District 9 profile →

District 8

SW Austin

Incumbent: Paige Ellis (since 2019)

District 8 profile →

Final candidate slates depend on the City Clerk’s filing period and may include additional challengers not yet listed. The remaining council seats (Districts 2, 4, 6, 7, 10) are not on the 2026 ballot; they next stand for election in 2028.

How Austin Elections Work

10-1, nonpartisan, four-year terms.

Until 2014 every Austin council seat was elected citywide, which tended to over-represent the wealthier west side of town. Voters changed that in 2012 by approving Proposition 3, the “10-1” geographic-representation amendment to the city charter. Now every neighborhood in Austin has a council member who answers specifically to it.

System

10-1 (since 2014)

Total Seats

11 (10 + Mayor)

Term Length

4 Years, Staggered

Term Limit

Two Consecutive

Ballot Type

Officially Nonpartisan

Form of Govt.

Council-Manager

Council members and the mayor are elected on officially nonpartisan ballots — party labels do not appear next to candidate names. To win outright a candidate must receive a majority (more than 50%) of votes cast for that seat; if no one clears 50%, the top two finishers go to a runoff held the following month. Day-to-day city operations are run by a professional City Manager appointed by the council.

Council standing committees do most of the early-stage work on legislation. The full council meets at City Hall on Thursdays, typically at 10 AM, with public comment periods open to any Austin resident; sessions are streamed live on ATXN public-access and archived afterward.

Members of Council

The current 10-1 council.

Click any member for a full information-rich profile: biography, education, election history, committee assignments, district neighborhoods, priorities, and contact information.

District 1

Natasha Harper-Madison

East Austin · Since 2019

District 2

Vanessa Fuentes

SE Austin · Mayor Pro Tem 2025

District 3

José Velásquez

East & South Austin · Since 2023

District 4

José “Chito” Vela

N. Central · Mayor Pro Tem 2026

District 5

Ryan Alter

South Austin · Since 2023

District 6

Krista Laine

NW Austin · Since 2025

District 7

Mike Siegel

North Austin · Since 2025

District 8

Paige Ellis

SW Austin · Since 2019

District 9

Zohaib “Zo” Qadri

Downtown / Central · Since 2023

District 10

Marc Duchen

West Austin · Since 2025

Voter Resources

How to register, where to vote, what to watch.

Austin city elections are run by Travis County (with smaller portions of the city in Williamson and Hays counties). Registration deadlines, ID requirements, and polling locations are set by Texas state law and county elections offices — not the City of Austin itself.

Check your registration

Confirm you’re registered at your current address. Texas’s deadline is 30 days before any election.

VoteTexas.gov →

Find your district

Look up your council district by address. Your council member depends on where you live, not your party affiliation.

AustinTexas.gov →

Travis County Elections

Polling places, early-voting locations, sample ballots, and the official election calendar are all posted here.

Travis County Clerk →

Watch a council meeting

ATXN public-access streams every Thursday council session live and posts the archive afterward. Best way to see your representatives at work.

ATXN streams →

Email the council

Reach all 11 members in one message for citywide items: council@austintexas.gov. District-specific concerns go to individual members.

All 10 districts →

Speak at a meeting

Any Austin resident can sign up to give three minutes of public comment at any council meeting. The City Clerk posts the agenda days in advance.

City Clerk →

Join a neighborhood association

Austin has dozens of registered neighborhood associations — the most direct way to get plugged into local zoning, traffic, and quality-of-life questions in your area.

Neighborhood Services →

Serve on a board or commission

The City appoints residents to dozens of boards and commissions — planning, parks, public safety, the arts, more. Each council member nominates members.

Boards & Commissions →

By the Numbers

What the last full cycle cost.

City Clerk filings from the 2022 election cycle — the most recent full mayoral and council class — tell a story of rising campaign spending and uneven reporting compliance:

The 34 candidates who sought any Austin office in 2022 collectively raised about $4.8 million, although the figure is understated because not every candidate filed the required reports.
Mayor Kirk Watson alone accounted for more than 43% of that total, raising and spending roughly $1.95 million on his return campaign — a record for an Austin mayoral race.
Predecessor Steve Adler had previously held the spending record at about $1.5 million from his 2014 campaign, in which he loaned his own committee more than $387,000.
17 of the 34 candidates — exactly half — failed to file their January 2023 campaign-finance report. Two were exempt under a $940 statutory threshold; the remaining fifteen were not.
The 2023 council ended up with 6 women and 5 men, down from 7 women and 4 men in 2022.

Source: City Clerk campaign-finance filings; Texas Ethics Commission penalty schedule for late or unfiled reports tops out at $5,000 or three times the amount at issue, whichever is greater.

About this site · Impartiality note. AustinMayor.com is an independent civic-reference site that has covered the Austin mayor and council since 2003. We are not affiliated with the City of Austin or any candidate. With one exception — the editorial endorsement of Katie Kam for District 9 stated openly at the top of this page — the contents of this site (officeholder profiles, district pages, election rules, voter resources) are written to inform, not to persuade. Factual corrections are welcome.

Sources: City of Austin official council and committee pages, Wikipedia’s “Austin City Council” article, the City Charter, Austin City Clerk campaign-finance filings, and the Texas Secretary of State.