The report has been updated following the April 10 vote count.
With an estimated 38 ballots still unprocessed, the seesaw battle for the second spot in the runoff for San Jose’s District 3 council seat continued Thursday.
The latest vote count showed mayoral Deputy Chief of Staff Matthew Quevedo leading San Jose Planning Commission Chair Anthony Tordillos by two votes. One day earlier, Tordillos had a one-vote lead.
Matthew Quevedo, deputy chief of staff for San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. Photo Courtesy of San Jose.
Anthony Tordillos, chair of San Jose Planning Commission. Photo from Tordillos council campaign.
In the April 10 5pm update, the county Registrar of Voters reported Gabby Chavez-Lopez had widened her lead as vote-counting neared its final total.
The slow churn of ballot counting and the razor-thin margins between Quevedo and Tordillos raised the spectre of a re-run of last spring's drama of the Primary Election for the second runoff spot in the 16th Congressional District.
Here are the updated returns in this spring's District 3 election, posted April 10:
- Gabby Chavez-Lopez 2,700 30%
- Matthew Quevedo 1,998 22%
- Anthony Tordillos 1,996 22%
- Irene Smith 1,438 16%
- Adam Duran 688 7%
- Tyrone Wade 135 2%
- Philip Dolan 53 1%
The final tally may not be known until April 15, the final date for mailed ballots to arrive at the county election office. Only the top two finishers will compete in the June 24 runoff election.
The million-dollar campaign
Candidates for the District 3 San Jose City Council seat spent twice as much as the district’s candidates spent two years ago.
In that election, there were twice as many voters as this week’s Special Election for the coveted downtown council seat.
That combination meant that the campaign and related independent committees for the top voter-getter in 2025, Chavez-Lopez, spent a shocking $255 per vote, with nearly 80% spent by special interest PACs.
City staffer Quevedo spent nearly as much: $198 per vote, with PACs spending less than 40% of the total. His opponent for the final runoff spot, Tordilllos, spent just $76 per voter.
In 2022, the campaign and PACs for victorious Jose Torres spent $42 per voter, a typical amount for local elections in Santa Clara County. Torres would resign two years later, hours before his arrest on sexual molestation charges.
In 2022, the primary and general election candidates and their PACs in District 3 spent approximately $844,000. The spending total for this year’s seven Special Election candidates was approximately $1.3 million – and the campaign spending between the top two finishers will grow as the race extends another 11 weeks.
Irene Smith ran for the District 3 seat in 2022, losing to Torres, and remained in the fourth position in votes counted this week. In her first electoral bid, she spent $26 for each vote; this year, she spent $16 per vote.
Of course, the candidates don’t know much they will be spending per vote. Most of their efforts, in fact, are spent on increasing voter turnout.
The growing influence of special interest PACs – which allow big businesses, wealthy individuals and organized labor to bypass limits on direct political contributions – represents a big factor in the growth of political spending, even at the most local level.
Here are comparisons of costs per vote, in local elections:
Total spending, Campaign and PACs
2025 District 3 (based on April 9 returns)
Chavez-Lopez $313 per vote
Quevedo $248 per vote
Tordillos $107 per vote
Smith $16 per vote
Total spent, all candidates $1.3 million
Other local races (for comparison)
16th Congressional District, 2024
Liccardo $33 per vote
Low $28 per vote
Total spent, top two: $9.6 million
2022 San Jose Mayor
Mahan $31 per vote
Chavez $45 per vote
Total spent, all candidates: $16 million
2022 District 3
Torres $42 per vote
Smith $26 per vote
Total spent, all candidates $844,000
My vote. And others I know. That’s what is currently keeping Quevedo from the run off.
Quevedo refused to renounce the Covid tyranny of his primary backer, Mayor Mahan.
Discriminatorily ban a third of residents from City Hall to coerce experimental jabs and some are gonna hold a long grudge.
Karma.
Why do the totals listed at bottom of article not match up with the $ per vote given in body? Based on the tacky $1million dollar bill up top, no one candidate spent a million. KQED is providing a clearer breakdown of costs to better inform the reader:
“Big money also poured into the race. Quevedo’s campaign spent $250,110, Tordillos spent $156,642, and Chavez-Lopez spent $117,306.
That spending, however, was dwarfed by the activity of political groups operating independently from the campaigns. Chavez-Lopez was bolstered by over $450,000 from the Labor Council and a separate business-aligned super PAC. Quevedo benefited from over $250,000 in spending from committees funded by business and real estate interests.”
As a reminder, Quevedo wants to arrest more people. From reading the KQED quote above, he could be accepting support from greedy interests. Chavez-Lopez is a non-profit leader experienced in fundraising
The old-school California voter who has seen many a newer Dem in operation and knows about Mahan’s following in Liccardo’s footsteps has considered the smart money to have been put on Mr. Quevedo all along. The Hayseed zone of the Bay Area can become Hazzard County at any time.
“How much ya wanna bet nobody else beats Quevedo?”