Democrat Josh Becker appeared to lead the race to replace retiring Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) for California’s 13th State Senate District, ahead of Republican Alexander Glew.

Hill is retiring after 12 years in state legislature, including four years as an assemblymember and eight years as a senator. Senate District 13 includes areas in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, from South San Francisco to Sunnyvale.

With 100 percent precincts reporting for both counties, unofficial election results so far show Becker comfortably leading Glew with over three quarters of the vote.

In San Mateo County, Becker received 76.7 percent of votes while Glew received 23.3 percent as of early Wednesday morning.

The county’s next results update is expected at 4:30pm Thursday.

In Santa Clara County, Becker received 78.3 percent of votes compared to Glew’s 21.7 percent as of Wednesday evening.

Becker—a public policy innovator from Menlo Park—said that while he is surprised by the large margin, he is grateful for the support and excited to lead. He would start with addressing immediate issues like recovering from Covid-19 and helping the economy.

“Recovering from Covid and getting the economy back in shape, that has to be number one,” Becker said. After that, he would focus on long-term issues.

“This district is an area where we've got things we need to work on, where we've got housing and transportation needs, but also people want to see a leader on issues like climate change, and I’m excited to be that leader,” Becker said. Climate change, criminal justice reform and education are some of the things he plans to focus on.

Glew—an engineer living in Los Altos—said that he was gratified to see that votes showed support beyond Republican voter registration numbers.

In the 13th senate district, Republican registered voters are between 13 and 15 percent for both counties, compared to over 50 percent Democratic registration, according to voter registration statistics from San Mateo County and Santa Clara County.

However, Glew said that people still seemed to vote by party lines as some of his positions which garnered support did not translate into votes.

“Looking at the positions that we supported, for example opposing Prop. 16 and supporting Prop. 22, and our environmental positions, it seems that people who actually think the way we think didn't support me as a candidate, which is surprising,” Glew said.

Glew said he hopes that those elected - not just in the 13th senate district, but any district focus on serving all Californians, not just those that support their agendas.