Berkeley's two incumbent city council members, Igor Tregub in District 4 and Mark Humbert in District 8, are holding leads in early election returns, but neither race is finished. Alameda County still has ballots left to count, and officials have been explicit that the numbers released so far could shift before anything is final.
In District 4, which covers downtown Berkeley and parts of central and north Berkeley, Berkeleyside reported Tregub with 59.1% of the vote to 40.9% for challenger Majdi Gaith, a cafe owner running against him. That margin was not identical across outlets: an earlier snapshot from the East Bay Times, taken as of 9:02 p.m. the night of the election, had Tregub at 60.52% and the challenger, identified there as Majdi “Gaith” Abuhamdieh, at 39.48%. The discrepancy reflects different points in an evolving count rather than two competing final tallies.
District 4's race was the more lopsided of the two contests covered so far. Tregub has represented the district since 2024, when he won a special election triggered by predecessor Kate Harrison's resignation in the middle of her term, according to Local News Matters. Early coverage from Berkeleyside's election tracker described Tregub as holding a strong lead in that race even as District 8 stayed closer.
District 8 Narrows After Ranked-Choice Tabulation
District 8, which covers the Elmwood District and surrounding neighborhoods, drew a more crowded field. Berkeleyside's initial first-choice tally showed Humbert with 51.7%, engineer Michael Wallman with 32.9%, community organizer Mari Mendonca with 12.5% and attorney Fred Feller, who had shut down his campaign in August, with 2.9%. The East Bay Times published a slightly different snapshot of the same contest, putting Humbert at 51.94%, Wallman at 33.31%, Mendonca at 11.88% and Feller at 2.86%.
Those first-choice numbers moved once the county ran its initial ranked-choice tabulation. The same Berkeleyside report that carried the first-choice figures said that once ranked-choice votes were tallied, Humbert led Wallman 57.3% to 42.7%, a difference of 484 votes. The outlet noted that this redistribution process, which reassigns votes from eliminated candidates, could continue to affect both the District 1 and District 8 contests as more ballots are processed.
Why the Numbers Keep Moving
The shifting figures are a product of timing, not error. The county published its first rounds of results Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning and ran its initial ranked-choice tabulations on top of those returns, per the same Berkeleyside report. Election officials were blunt about the limits of what's known so far: there are still lots of uncounted ballots, and the results are preliminary and incomplete, with the possibility that they could change.
Tregub struck a cautious tone of his own when asked about his lead. “I feel pretty confident with these numbers that my lead will hold, but of course I am not going to celebrate until every vote is counted,” he told Berkeleyside in comments reported alongside the Wednesday results.
Who's on the Ballot
Tregub's council résumé includes stints on the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board, the Berkeley Behavioral Health Commission, the Berkeley Housing Advisory Commission and the AC Transit parcel tax oversight committee, according to the seed report from SFGATE. He has said Berkeley should advance affordable homeownership and rental opportunities, supportive housing and services for unhoused people, and safer, climate-resilient infrastructure.
Humbert, a career federal litigator and mediator, won his council seat in 2022 and has served on the Berkeley Transportation Commission, the Berkeley Public Works Commission and the Berkeley Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission. He has pointed to park enhancement projects, including the Willard Park clubhouse, and zoning updates allowing duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in residential neighborhoods as first-term achievements, and he has asked voters to let him continue working on public safety, small businesses, streets and sidewalks, inclusion and affordability.
Berkeley's city council races use ranked-choice voting, meaning first-choice percentages alone don't always predict a final outcome, as the shift in District 8's numbers illustrates. With ballots still being counted, both the District 4 and District 8 results remain preliminary for now.
