Tordillos trumps Quevedo for spot in San Jose District 3 City Council runoff ...Middle East

A recount by Santa Clara County election officials has affirmed Anthony Tordillos’ second-place finish in the San Jose City Council District 3 special election, advancing him to a runoff against leading vote-getter Gabby Chavez-Lopez on June 24.

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Although Chavez-Lopez maintained the top spot over the seven-person field vying to replace disgraced former City Councilmember Omar Torres since the polls closed, she failed to receive the majority of votes needed to clinch an outright victory, turning the race into a showdown between Tordillos and Matthew Quevedo for the other spot in a runoff.

After switching places in the pecking order multiple times during the week following the election, Tordillos emerged with a slim six-vote advantage, triggering an automatic recount, which began last Thursday and confirmed the results.

“While this has been a long process, with many twists and turns, I am very excited that our campaign will advance to the June 24th runoff election,” Tordillos said. “I want to thank my team, donors, and the volunteers who all made this possible. “As we prepare for the next chapter of this campaign, I’d also like to thank Matthew Quevedo, Irene Smith, Adam Duran, Tyrone Wade, and Phillip Dolan for all stepping up and volunteering to serve our community in this turbulent time.”

Once the field for the election was set, Chavez-Lopez, the executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, and Quevedo, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s deputy chief of staff, were considered by pundits as the frontrunners in the race to replace Torres, who resigned last year on sex abuse charges that he later pleaded no contest to in April.

But Tordillos, who leads a team of engineers at Google’s YouTube and is chair of the city’s planning commission, quickly emerged as a dark-horse candidate, earning the co-endorsement of the Santa Clara County Democratic Party along with Chavez-Lopez and also showing a strong ability to fundraise at the grassroots level.

In the end, Chavez-Lopez received approximately 30% of the vote, followed by Tordillos with 22.18% and Quevedo with 22.12%. Rounding out the rest of the leaderboard, Smith, the former challenger to Torres in the 2022 election, finished in fourth with 16% of the vote, followed by Duran, Wade and Dolan.

County policy mandated a recount because the margin of victory was either less than 0.25% of the ballots cast or fewer than 25 votes.

Had Quevedo and Tordillos finished in a tie, the city clerk would have written their names on slips of paper and then conducted a random drawing to determine which candidate would advance.

With the runoff set, Tordillos and Chavez-Lopez will have a quick turnaround as the Registrar of Voters will send out the next round of ballots starting on the week of May 26.

Quevedo’s loss could signify a potential setback for Mahan, who struggled at times in his first two years to advance his policy agenda due to the more progressive makeup of the City Council. Both Quevedo and Mahan referenced the importance of the seat and the need to challenge establishment politics and the status quo during the campaign.

With Carl Salas currently representing the District 3 seat in an interim capacity and so far serving as a rubber stamp for the mayor’s agenda, Mahan has enough votes to push proposals forward; however, the policy platforms of the remaining candidates could become an obstacle once a winner emerges in June.

Tordillos has identified homelessness, affordable housing development, public safety, and improving downtown vibrancy as his chief priorities. Meanwhile, Chavez-Lopez has targeted improving safety and cleanliness, increasing housing density and streamlining development, ensuring small business success and creating a vibrant, inclusive downtown core.

However, while there is some agreement on the city’s biggest issues, there are significant disparities between the candidates and the mayor in their plans to drive results.

For example, Mahan has supported a permanent policy shift allowing greater flexibility for using Measure E funds – the 2000 voter-approved ballot initiative for affordable housing, homelessness prevention and support programs.

While the City Council has approved using the funds for interim housing solutions over the past few years, both Chavez-Lopez and Tordillos have opposed a permanent shift, noting that such a policy would contradict the will of the voters and their belief that the city needs to increase its production of affordable housing.

Chavez-Lopez and Tordillos also opposed Mahan’s recent “Responsibility to Shelter” proposal, which called for changes to the municipal code that would allow trespassing charges against homeless residents who refused offers of available shelter three times over 18 months. Mahan has argued that the policy proposal would create a layer of accountability for homeless residents to come indoors and an avenue for the city to petition behavioral health courts to get them into treatment in cases when drug or mental health afflictions are causing people to be service-resistant.

With Mahan’s preferred candidate out of the race, he said he plans to meet with the other candidates before deciding whether he will get involved in the upcoming election.

“My plan is to meet with the two advancing candidates to discuss the challenges facing our city and our respective views on the right solutions and see who I am aligned with,” Mahan said. “I have not decided yet whether or not I’ll weigh in on this race, but I’m eager to support candidates who are independent, data-driven and relentlessly focused on outcomes over ideology.”

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