In a highly-competitive race to become Santa Clara County’s first Vietnamese American supervisor, Betty Duong appears to have a slight edge over Madison Nguyen.
As of 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, Duong is leading her opponent with 51.9% of the vote, or 29,957 votes. Nguyen, a former San Jose councilmember and vice mayor, is trailing with 48% of the vote, or 27,689 votes. County voter turnout is at 44.6%, with more than 468,000 ballots cast.
The pair are vying to replace Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez who terms out in December. District 2 includes East San Jose and parts of downtown with a large Vietnamese population. The competitive race is splitting Vietnamese voters along pro-labor and pro-business lines as the community chooses who will represent them on the board for the first time.
Duong, an East San Jose native and Chavez’s chief of staff, would add a pro-labor voice to the board. Despite being a first-time candidate, she’s the South Bay Labor Council’s pick with about 11 years of experience working behind the scenes in local government. She is set to join a woman-led board, with District 5 also electing a woman.
Her supporters gathered on election night at her campaign headquarters on South 5th Street. They wore bright pink from head to toe, bopped along to pop music from Miley Cyrus and feasted on dishes such as shaking beef and five-spice chicken. A pink piñata hung from the ceiling and children jumped in a small castle-shaped bounce house.
San Jose resident Allan Kamara said he supports Duong because she has county experience he values as a registered nurse.
“The county is a complex system. The health care system alone takes more than 60% of the county budget,” he told San José Spotlight. “Imagine somebody coming into that has no idea about how the county operates.”
Duong, an East San Jose native and Chavez’s chief of staff, would add a pro-labor voice to the board. Despite being a first-time candidate, she’s the South Bay Labor Council’s pick with about 11 years of experience working behind the scenes in local government. She is set to join a woman-led board, with District 5 also electing a woman.
Her supporters gathered on election night at her campaign headquarters on South 5th Street. They wore bright pink from head to toe, bopped along to pop music from Miley Cyrus and feasted on dishes such as shaking beef and five-spice chicken. A pink piñata hung from the ceiling and children jumped in a small castle-shaped bounce house.
San Jose resident Allan Kamara said he supports Duong because she has county experience he values as a registered nurse.
“The county is a complex system. The health care system alone takes more than 60% of the county budget,” he told San José Spotlight. “Imagine somebody coming into that has no idea about how the county operates.”
She was the campaign manager for Measure A — a $950 million housing bond approved by voters in 2016 — before moving to county government, where she served as the spokesperson for its Emergency Operations Center during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her work also led to the opening of the Vietnamese American Service Center in 2021.
Duong is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants and grew up living in Section 8 housing for part of her childhood. Her family relied on county support, which she said makes the race personal to her.
Nguyen, already making history as the first Vietnamese American elected to the San Jose City Council, is the business community’s choice, winning support from San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce of Northern California. In her time on the dais, Nguyen helped preserve 58 San Jose mobile home parks and aided in bringing more than 1,000 affordable homes into her district.
“I’m still hopeful. It was a really great campaign, a very inclusive campaign,” Nguyen told San José Spotlight late Tuesday. “We had supporters from all walks of life, we had volunteers from all corners of county District 2, so I’m very proud of the campaign we have run.”
She is also the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who counted on government support to survive.
Since Oct. 2023, Duong raised about $503,173, with $10,000 in loans and has spent about $459,194. Nguyen raised about $489,670 and spent about $400,871.
Contact Annalise Freimarck at annalise@sanjosespotlight.com or follow @annalise_ellen on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This story originally appeared in San José Spotlight.