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San Jose D3 race remains tight as vote totals come in

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Published  April 14, 2025 6:39pm PDT
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KTVU FOX 2

The Brief

    • Gabby Chavez-Lopez remains in the lead, but the second place candidate is still undetermined.
    • With no candidate receiving over 50% of the vote, the contest will move to a runoff election on June 24.
    • Matthew Quevedo had previously been the leading second-place candidate, but new tallies show he's now trailing Anthony Tordillos.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - The San Jose District 3 City Council race is even closer, with the latest results showing another swing in who could enter a runoff race for the seat with frontrunner Gabby Chavez-Lopez.

Ballot totals as of Monday showed that Anthony Tordillos, the chair of the city's planning commission and an engineer at Google, had moved into second place with a one-vote lead over Matthew Quevedo, the deputy chief of staff to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. The shift marks the second time in the last week that Tordillos has moved ahead in the totals.

Chavez-Lopez has been the frontrunner of the seven candidates in the race to replace disgraced former councilman Omar Torres, who last week pleaded no contest to charges of sexual abuse involving a minor. Torres resigned his position last November.

The totals for the other five candidates have been relatively unchanged, with former District 3 candidate Irene Smith placing fourth with 16% of the vote, followed by Adam Duran, Tyrone Wade and Phil Dolan.

Chavez-Lopez may be leading the field, but she's well-short of the 51% needed to win the seat outright. At last count, only 29.9% of the ballots cast were in favor of Chavez-Lopez. Under the city's election rules, if no one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates in the special election will advance to a runoff election on June 24.

Tordillos and Quevedo have traded second and third place multiple times since the April 8 election. As of Monday night, Tordillos had received 2,000 votes, or 22.18%.

Mail-in ballots will be counted through Tuesday, provided those ballots were postmarked by April 8. Santa Clara County policy dictates an automatic review for elections with a margin of victory of less than .25%, or where the margin is less than 25 total votes.

Final results are expected to be certified by April 28.

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