The next San Jose City Council is beginning to take shape
More than a week after Election Day, the future makeup of the San Jose City Council has begun to take shape as two business- and two labor-backed candidates appear to have won the four competitive races, the latest results show.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan could now count on at least two more allies to the City Council, allowing him to advance more of his policy agenda in the coming years.
In an interview with The Mercury News, Mahan said that he viewed the local and statewide results as a general sign as support for his “back to basics” approach to government.
“Part of the message voters are sending to the establishment is they want government to stop expanding for a moment and figure out how to better leverage what we have to deliver better outcomes,” Mahan said. “We also need to be able to make government more efficient and more pragmatic and more focused. I think that we have had an answer of always being bigger government when we should be more serious about better government.”
In District 10, which Mahan represented before becoming mayor, George Casey has defeated incumbent Arjun Batra after jumping out to a commanding lead and winning 57.8% of the vote in his district, according to Friday evening’s vote tally by the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters..
Casey, a corporate attorney by trade, and Batra, a former Intel and IBM executive, faced off in somewhat of a rematch. After Mahan vacated the District 10 seat two years ago, the City Council appointed Batra over a slew of candidates that included Casey.
“The victory is the result of what can only be described as a team effort,” Casey told The Mercury News. “Our dedicated volunteers are what made the difference — so many great people selflessly committing their time and effort to getting our message out is why we won.”
Meanwhile in District 6, former mayoral candidate and Mahan-ally Michael Mulcahy has maintained his lead over Olivia Navarro in a race for a new representative on the Council. Mulcahy holds a 51.4% to 48.6% advantage with 37,581 votes cast.
With District 6 Councilmember Dev Davis finishing her second term, Mulcahy, a local businessman and former mayoral candidate, and Navarro, an insurance agent and union advisor, advanced to the general election to represent neighborhoods west of downtown, including Willow Glen, West San Carlos and Fruitdale.
In District 8, incumbent Domingo Candelas has won a full four-year term on the City Council after scoring an equally dominant victory over challenger Tam Truong. Candelas’ lead over Truong has continued to swell since election day as he has now received 57.4% of the vote.
Candelas has served as District 8’s representative since 2023, when the City Council appointed him to the position over Evergreen School District Board Trustee President Patricia Andrade, city analyst Salvador Alvarez, software manager Sukhdev Singh Bainiwal, and his opponent in 2024, Truong.
Potentially impacting this year’s race, the San Jose Police Department placed Truong on leave after the district attorney’s office charged him with felony grand theft tied to mortgage fraud allegations. After the allegations, Mahan pulled his endorsement from Truong’s candidacy while calling for due process. Adding to the political theater, the Santa Cruz County prosecutors, who took on the case due to a conflict of interest in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, asked a judge to dismiss the charges last month.
Candelas did not respond to a request for comment.
After starting out as the tightest race, Pamela Campos appears headed to victory over Joe Lopez after he won the most votes in the District 2 primary. After the margin shrunk to a few hundred votes on Election Day, Campos now holds a 2,442-vote advantage after the release of the most recent ballot results.
Lopez, a retired 35-year veteran of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office backed by Mahan and business interests, and Campos, a labor-supported policy officer at the Low Income Investment Fund, faced off to replace outgoing District 2 Councilmember Sergio Jimenez, who has termed out.
“Our campaign has been clear from the start, this campaign is about fighting for affordable housing, keeping our communities safe and creating a community where all District 2 residents can thrive,” Campos previously said.
District 4 Councilmember David Cohen clinched a second term in the March primary after succeeding the 50% voter threshold.