With a suprised announcement on November 21, Democrat Representative Anna Eschoo, 81, joined a dozen House Democrats opting to retire next year. The race for this safe Democratic seat occupied by her since 1992 will likely be fierce among the thirteen candidates, 11 Democrats and 2 Republicans.
The California's 16th congressional district covers the Peninsula and South Bay cities including Palo Altos, Mountain View, Pacifica, Halfmoon Bay, Saratoga, Campbell, Los Altos, Los Gatos, and the southwestern part of San Jose.
There are roughly 445,000 registered voters in the district with the breakddown of 20% Asian, 11% Hispanic and the rest is lumped into a voting demographic of non-Asian, non-Latino and non-Black. Vietnamese-American voters make up about 6% of the total and they will likely play a significant role in the primary because of the divided votes among the large number of candidates.
The 2024 March primary will determine which top two candidates will advance to the general election regardless of party's affiliation.
Currently, due to just 7 weeks before the absentee ballot is available, the three leading candidates with the most name recognition, connection and fundraising networks are Sam Liccardo, Evan Low and Joe Simitian.
Sam Liccardo, 53, is the favorite to be in the runoff by virtual of being the former mayor of San Jose and roughly a third of the registered voters in the district live in San Jose. His name recognition in the Vietnamese-American community is high and San Jose voters historically will vote for San Jose candidates. Within weeks of announcement, he has raised over $900,000. His tenure as mayor is controversial with the city being fined heavily for non-compliance with transparency and open government rules and the spiral escalation of the homeless crisis.
Joe Simitian, 70, has been waiting for Eshoo's seat for quite a while now and he has been raising money over the past decade and amassing a war chest of more than $700,000. His name recognion in the Peninsula cities is substantial considering that he is currently the Santa Clara County supervisor, former state senator and Palo Alto mayor. He is probably the most experience politician on issues and his liberal views fit with the district progressive bend. His age might come into play but conventional wisdom is that most voters are more interested in getting things done in congress.
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Evan Low, 40, is an openly gay state legislator serving since 2014 in a district that has a strong Chinese-American constituents. So far, he has raised over $300,000 with a strong support of labor unions. He has received endorsement from Rep. Rho Khanna and will like from Zoe Lofgren also.
The two wild cards that have remote ousider chance are Julie Lythcott-Haimes, an attorney who is current serving on the Palo Alto City Council, and Rishi Kumar, a former Saratoga City Councilmember and ran against Eshoo in the last two elections.
The other candidates will capture the attention of voters but they are likely playing a role of spoilers. However the two Republican candidates can sneak in since 16% of total voters are Repbulican and with this many Democratic candidates siphoning votes from each other, anything can happen.
At any rate, the current conventional wisdom predicts at this stage of the race, Sam Liccardo will be one of the candidates in the runoff. And if Evan Low can consolidate his Asian and Hispanic supporters, he has a good chance to break the likely needed 20% threshold to be in the general election.
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