Democrat Scott Sakakihara was ahead in early returns against Republican Linda Price on Tuesday in the California Senate District 10 election.
Sakakihara was in the lead with about 73% of the vote, compared to Price’s 27%, according to the vote count from the California Secretary of State’s Office.
Sakakihara, an East Bay Democrat, and Price, a South Bay Republican who has never held office before, are facing off in the race to replace Aisha Wahab, who won a special election to replace Eric Swalwell in Congress for the rest of his term this year.
The winner will represent a state Senate district that 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.
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.
“We’ve seen both the very positive version of what government can offer and the very negative version,” Sakakihara said prior to the election. “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.
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.
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.
Some priorities listed on her website include public safety, funding for roads and transit, environmental protection and access to education.
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.
