Benicia City Council: Scott and Birdseye Lead With 6,325 and 5,918 Votes

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5 UPDATE — SOLANO NOVEMBER 4, 7:40 P.M. BATCH. In Benicia’s two-seat council election, the later returns report Terry Scott 6,325 votes (39.7%), Kari Birdseye 5,918 (37.1%) and Justin Zollars 3,680 (23.1%). Birdseye leads Zollars by 2,238 candidate selections at the cutoff for the second seat. These supersede the earlier figures below; no official winner is certified. The distinction between candidate selections and unique ballots matters in a two-seat election.

First election-night snapshot

BENICIA, Calif. — November 4, 2026, evening editorial review. Benicia’s three-candidate election for two City Council seats shows incumbents Terry Scott and Kari Birdseye holding the first two positions in a published early count. Local News Matters’ Solano County results table lists Scott at 4,526 votes (40.50%), Birdseye at 4,232 (37.87%) and challenger Justin Zollars at 2,324 (20.80%). These figures are from an early election-results snapshot, not the county’s completed November 4 canvass.

Two seats and three candidates

The City of Benicia’s official election page confirms that Scott, Birdseye and Zollars were the three candidates competing for two four-year council seats. The gap between Birdseye, in second place, and Zollars, in third, was 1,908 candidate votes in the referenced snapshot. That is a margin between candidates in a multi-seat vote, not a percentage of registered voters.

How much counting remains?

Independent local outlet The Vallejo Sun reported at 4:51 p.m. on November 4 that Solano County had counted 113,837 ballots countywide and estimated approximately 40,000 outstanding ballots. Those are countywide counts and should never be mistaken for votes outstanding specifically in Benicia. Later releases could shift the candidate totals.

Beyond the council race

Benicia voters also faced local Measures X, Y and Z covering changes to city policy and governance. Rather than invent percentages for those measures, California58 refers readers to the city’s official ballot-measure summaries and Solano County’s election-results office. Official certification remains pending.

Sources: Local News Matters early Solano candidate totals; City of Benicia 2026 elections; The Vallejo Sun November 4 county ballot-count update; Solano County Registrar. All results are unofficial and all numbers are attributed to their reporting snapshots.

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