A moderately experienced East Bay Democrat and a South Bay Republican who has never held office before are facing off in the state Senate race to replace Aisha Wahab.
The winner in the Nov. 3 election will represent California Senate District 10, which spans parts of both Alameda and Santa Clara counties, including all or parts of Fremont, Hayward, Milpitas, Union City, San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.
Democrat Scott Sakakihara and Republican Linda Price were the top two vote-getters in the June 2 primary. The winner will replace Wahab, who won a special election to replace Eric Swalwell in Congress for the rest of his term this year.
Price is a relative political newcomer who doesn’t list any previously held political offices on her website, but she did win 25% of the vote to advance past the primary. She also ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Fremont Union High School District board in 2022.
She describes herself as an executive coach, an adjunct professor at several Bay Area colleges and a former U.S. Department of Defense employee.
Price, whose website includes a Sunnyvale P.O. Box address, declined a request to be interviewed or to send in a candidate statement.
Sakakihara was elected to be a Union City City Council member in 2022 and served on the city’s planning commission before that. He is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and works as the finance chief of staff for a software company, according to the city’s website.
Sakakihara, who won nearly 28% of the vote in the primary, said he was inspired to get involved in politics after he and his family experienced both the good and bad effects of government policy.
Sakakihara’s priorities and record
“We’ve seen both the very positive version of what government can offer and the very negative version,” Sakakihara said. “So on the negative side, all my grandparents and all of my family members were sent to the Japanese American internment camps during World War 2, and we saw what happens when there’s hysteria and government-sanctioned discrimination.”
He said that on the positive side, his family was helped by his grandfather’s Social Security benefits after he died, his father received public tuition assistance for college, and his parents bought their home with the help of a loan from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
He said two of his top priorities are housing and the environment, having helped secure the early passage of Union City’s state-mandated housing element and helped usher in two 100% affordable housing projects.
“I think there’s a lot we can continue to do on both the land-use side and making sure that we’re able to build housing, especially affordable housing, quickly and also on the financing side, in terms of there are high interest rates now, there’s a lot of barriers to getting the financing necessary to build the housing,” Sakakihara said.
He said some solutions could include using state-owned land to expedite affordable housing construction, streamlining building regulations, and injecting state funds into affordable housing projects.
On the environmental side, Sakakihara said he’s proud of his work to fund and lead an effort to update Union City’s Climate Action Plan, which has a goal of getting the city to net zero carbon emissions.
He supports the statewide effort to preserve and protect 30% of California’s open lands and coastal waters.
He said the state must continue to fight against the federal government’s efforts to roll back environmental protections and that the Legislature has an important role to play by incentivizing clean energy generation and storage, including government investment in research and science.
Sakakihara has raised $1.7 million in campaign contributions as of Sept. 19 and has compiled a long list of endorsements, including Wahab, who held the seat until recently, the state Democratic Party, union groups, police and firefighters associations and dozens of local political leaders.
Price’s platform
There are no campaign finance disclosure documents on file for Price, who lists as her endorsements state and local Republican Party groups, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the American Independent Party of California.
Some priorities listed on her website include public safety, funding for roads and transit, environmental protection and access to education.
“I’ll work with local communities to expand housing opportunities while respecting neighborhood character, streamlining responsible development, and reducing unnecessary barriers that increase costs,” Price says on her website.
“I believe government should be transparent, fiscally responsible, accountable to taxpayers, and focused on delivering results rather than creating unnecessary bureaucracy,” she said.
The district has nearly 534,000 voters and leans heavily Democratic, with a little over 50% of voters registered for that party and about 15% registered as Republicans, according to the latest numbers released by the state on Sept. 4. Nearly 30% of voters in the district are registered as “no party preference.”
Additional information about candidates Price and Sakakihara can be found on their respective campaign websites.
