Unpredictable Race for Silicon Valley Congressional Seat After Unprecedented Tie

An unlikely tie for second place in a closely watched U.S. House election in Silicon Valley has led to an unprecedented result: Three Democrats will compete in a general election for Congress, a first since California launched its top-two primary system in 2012.

After deadlocking at 30,249 votes each in the primary, Assemblymember Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian will both advance to the general election with 16.6% of the vote. They’ll also face former San José Mayor Sam Liccardo, who finished with 21.1% of the vote atop an 11-candidate field in the 16th congressional district.

“This is so Silicon Valley,” Low told KQED. “We don’t want to just have two choices, we want three choices.”

The result has scrambled the candidates’ general election plans and created an unpredictable path toward November.

“I think it’s a whole new race,” said Simitian, in an interview. “The three of us in the runoff got slightly more than half the votes that were cast in the [primary] election. That means that almost half the votes that were cast were cast for somebody else and those are all up for grabs.”

Liccardo, Simitian and Low are vying for the seat held for the last three decades by Democrat Anna Eshoo, who announced late last year that she would not be seeking reelection.

In a two-candidate general election, campaigns typically seek out contrasts and issues to attack their lone opponent, said political strategist Katie Merrill. But this three-candidate race could more closely resemble a primary, she said, in which campaigns are often leery of having a negative spat blow back on them or unexpectedly boost another candidate.

“If two candidates start a war with each other here, the third can sneak into first place,” Merrill said.

With results certified last week, any voter has until Tuesday to request a recount. But the costs could be prohibitive: A full manual recount in Santa Clara County could cost more than $300,000, while a new count in San Mateo County could easily top $100,000. And for Simitian and Low, there is little incentive to roll the dice on a count that could go in the other candidate’s favor.

“I would say obviously don’t ask for a recount, just accept that you’re on the ballot,” said Merrill. “You want to be on and you’re on.”

Instead, the campaigns are likely to turn their attention to raising money ahead of a key July 15 mid-year filing deadline. In the primary, the 11 candidates combined to spend $5.6 million through Feb. 14 — flooding mailboxes from Pacifica to Los Gatos and placing pricey television ads in prime broadcast slots.

Liccardo begins the general election campaign with a hefty war chest. His campaign reported $1.2 million on hand in mid-February, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw $500,000 into a super PAC in support of his candidacy. Liccardo, the business-friendly former leader of the district’s largest city, bested Low and Simitian by nearly five percentage points in the primary and could be the most palatable general election option for voters who cast a ballot for a Republican in the primary.

“Clearly Liccardo is the front-runner,” said Merrill. “Do Low and Simitian tag team against Liccardo, to knock him down? And then, hope to knock him down enough that they can vie for the number one spot?”

In the primary, Low won the backing of organized labor and benefited from outside spending on his behalf from a political group largely funded by PG&E. He has targeted a younger and more progressive slice of the electorate and could be bolstered by an increased turnout among those voters in the fall.

Political strategist Brian Parvizshahi said he expects more than 300,000 voters could turn out in the general election, compared to the 182,135 who cast ballots in the primary.

“Seeing how you’re able to get your message out and mobilize those additional 130,000 new voters will be critical,” Parvizshahi said. “Especially some of these younger and lower-to-moderate propensity voters.”

The shrinking candidate field could also shift the dynamics of the race. Four candidates on the primary ballot — including two sitting city council members — hailed from Palo Alto, the city Simitian has represented through stints on the city council, county board of supervisors and state Legislature — and where he outpaced Low and Liccardo in the primary.

“Simitian basically dominated in the areas in the north of the district,” said former Saratoga City Councilmember Rishi Kumar, who finished sixth in the primary. “With two candidates running in the southern part [of the district], I think it favors Simitian to a certain extent.”

Kumar said the biggest winner moving forward will be the voters, who had to make their pick in an abbreviated primary campaign that only began when Eshoo announced her decision not to seek a 17th term in late November.

“When you look at the short runway that we had with the primary election, with eleven in the race, the voters really didn’t have a chance to dissect the resume of the candidates or even understand the issues that they were standing behind,” Kumar said.

Now, candidates will have seven months to re-introduce themselves to voters, and lay out their vision for what Kumar calls “the future sustainability of Silicon Valley.”

“How do you create a future sustainability that includes solutions to housing, traffic, water, homelessness?” he added. “I think that is going to be critical.”