San Jose Mayor's Race: It's Cortese and Liccardo in November

Update, Wednesday, 7:35 a.m.: With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Santa Clara Supervisor Dave Cortese and San Jose City Councilman Sam Liccardo will compete in November to replace outgoing Mayor Chuck Reed. The top three vote-getters, according to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, are:
Dave Cortese: 33.6 percent
Sam Liccardo: 25.1 percent
Madison Nguyen: 21.2 percent

Update, Wednesday 1:20 a.m.: With 477 of 485 precincts reporting, Sam Liccardo is likely to hold onto his lead over Madison Nguyen and will face Dave Cortese in the general election.

Update, Midnight: With 197 of 485 precincts reporting, it appears that Dave Cortese will certainly be on the ballot in November, but it is not yet clear who his opponent will be. As of midnight Wednesday, Sam Liccardo had 25 percent of the vote and Madison Nguyen had 22 percent. For the latest returns, visit the Santa Clara Elections website.

Update, Tuesday 10:40 p.m.: With 57 of San Jose's 485 precincts reporting — and we don't know what proportion of mail-in ballots have been counted yet — the top three are:

Dave Cortese, 33.9 percent
Sam Liccardo, 24.4 percent
Madison Nguyen: 22.5 percent

Cortese is confident he'll stay atop the race.

"I was on my way down here at 8:01 p.m. and I got a text from my campaign manager and he said, '60,000 votes, you have 33.75 percent,' " says Cortese. "My response to him was, 'That’ll hold. That’s not going to change.'”

Update, Tuesday 9:15 p.m.: Though the race is not close to being called, City Councilman Sam Liccardo says he's confident he'll be facing Dave Cortese in the mayor's race in November.

"Last year at this time, we were predicted to finish fourth or somewhere thereabouts," Liccardo told KQED reporter Charla Bear. "We’ve had just an incredible surge of support."

Update, Tuesday, 8:50 p.m.: Dave Cortese has jumped to an early lead, but who will he face in November? Madison Nguyen and Sam Liccardo are neck and neck for the second-place position.

Original Post:

Not everyone at San Jose City Hall is running to replace termed-out Mayor Chuck Reed. It just seems that way. The crowded field of eight candidates includes four current City Council members and a county supervisor. Three candidates are seen as the favorites: Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, Councilman Sam Liccardo and Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen.

This is the first open San Jose mayor's race in eight years. Public safety clearly has become the top issue for many voters. The city’s rising crime rate has damaged San Jose's reputation as one of the nation’s safest large cities. Emergency response times have worsened as well, and that is partly a legacy of the pension reform battles Reed waged with the city's unions.

San Jose’s police force has shrunk by more than a third, to about 900 officers, with many moving to neighboring cities to escape the effects of Measure B, a voter-approved pension reform plan spearheaded by Reed that is now tied up in legal challenges.

Cortese, Liccardo and Nguyen all stated at a recent debate that reducing the crime rate would be their top priority, as did the other two candidates on hand, Pierluigi Oliverio and Rose Herrera.