Johnny Khamis and Santa Clara County Supervisor D1 Race

 

While most voters in San Jose are focusing on the contested San Jose mayoral seat, another significant race is shaping up to be very important for the balance of power in Santa Clara County as well as the representation of the Vietnamese - American community.  Currently, Santa Clara County D1 covers most of South San Jose neighborhoods including Blossom Hills and Almaden (SJ D10 and SJ D2), and Evergreen (SJ D8).  With about 10% of the registered are Vietnamese - American, the community cannot afford to ignore the race between former City Councilmember Johnny Khamis and D8 City Councilmember Sylvia Arenas.

After the redistricting in 2021, both Santa Clara County D3 and D1 are two districts that have the most Vietnamese-American voters, 12% and 10% respectively.   Supervisor Otto Lee won the D3 seat in 2020 when it made up of  16% Vietnamese-American voters. 

Johnny Khamis is a close ally of former City Councilmember Tam Nguyen.  Arriving in San Jose in 1976 from Beirut to escape the civil war, he grew up in a struggling immigrant family who rebuilt their life from scratch.  He graduated from San Jose State University and the CEO of a successfuly financial consulting firm.  His politics are aligned with most Vietnamese-Americans who came here as refugees to rebuild their lives  -  strong family values, personal accountability, fiscal responsibility, and more importantly, a government that works for the people without waste and mire in bureaucracy.

So far in this race,  Khamis  has shown to be a tiredless campaigner.  He raised over $550,000, twice his opponent, and received endorsements of key bipartisan political leaders in Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Jose.

His opponent has been on cruise control and relies heavily on South Bay Labor Council for her campaign.  The battle ground right now is San Jose City District 8 where over 25% of registered voters are Vietnamese-Americans.  

Syliva Arenas is a controversial candidate when earlier this year, she decided to introduce a measure  to allow noncitizen residents in San Jose a right to votes in all local elections.  This would allow about 120,000 noncitizen residents in San Jose to vote.  To Vietnamese-Americans, extending the right could lead lead to corruption and unaccountability of the voting system.   Moreover, with no representation in city council despite representing 13% of the registered voters, many Vietnamese-Americans feel threaten that their votes will be more diluted by the noncitizens, especially when a high percentage is Latina. 

In the primary, the Evergreen neighborhood where Vietnamese-Americans are dominant, Arenas won all of the precincts in the area,  mostly because of name recognition as their councilmember.  However,  Khamis has been actively campaign in community trying to change that.  

The race will come down to the wire.  Right now, the conventional wisdom is that Khamis has an edge  if the hispanic turnout is low as expected.   But he still needs to convert the Vietnamese-American voters who mostly  aligned with his pragmatic politics.