With Santa Clara County Supervisors Cindy Chavez and Joe Simitian terming out and several longtime Silicon Valley politicians are vying for a chance to represent California’s sixth most populous county as it grapples with a bleak financial picture in the coming years.
Chavez, who represents District 2, won a special election for the seat in 2013. In November, she’s set to leave the Bay Area and return to her home state of New Mexico where she will be the next county manager of Bernalillo County. Chavez’ chief of staff, Betty Duong, is running against former San Jose Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen to be the first Vietnamese American supervisor on the board. The district is one of the most densely populated districts in the county and encompasses parts of downtown and east San Jose.
Simitian, who represents District 5, was first elected to the board in 2012 and most recently made an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo’s congressional seat. Mountain View Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga and California State Board of Equalization member Sally Lieber are both running for the seat. The district covers parts of the West Valley and the northern part of the county, encompassing Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto Saratoga, Stanford and parts of Sunnyvale and San Jose.
Santa Clara County’s projections show a possible $158 million deficit by the 2026-27 fiscal year. The county also recently announced it is adding a fourth hospital to its healthcare system through the upcoming purchase of Regional Medical Center for $175 million.
District 2
Betty Duong
Duong, 43, has served as Chavez’s chief of staff for the last two years, but her work at the county spans more than a decade. She’s worked in the Vietnamese American Service Center, the county Office of Labor Standards Enforcement and served as the lead public information officer during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I grew up navigating a system that never had enough interpreters during my childhood, a system that was not culturally competent, yet did its best,” Duong said. “I know how crucial services are, so that’s why it’s been an honor for the last 11 years to be serving our families, serving our most vulnerable community members and working towards strengthening the very same system that my family relied on.”
Duong said that some of the most important issues facing the county include the homelessness crisis and public safety. She wants to strengthen the county’s homelessness prevention system and ensure they’re using all the tools available to tackle the crisis — including using medical treatment beds as an option for housing. When it comes to public safety, Duong said she wants to increase investments in rehabilitation programs and ensure their integrating all emergency services.
Her endorsements include Chavez, U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the Santa Clara County Democratic Party and Santa Clara County Sheriff Bob Jonsen.
Madison Nguyen
Nguyen, 49, is looking to return to local politics because she’s “frustrated by the current environment” in the county.
“I believe that the county needs change and it needs to happen now,” she said. “We can’t afford another 12 years of leadership that I’m currently seeing — especially in District 2.”
She said the “county lacks a sense of urgency and accountability” and that she’s made accountability and common sense solutions a cornerstone of her campaign.
Nguyen and her family fled Vietnam and came to California when she was four-years-old. She got her political start in 2002 when she was elected to the Franklin-McKinley School District Board of Education. In 2005, she became the first Vietnamese American to be elected to the San Jose City Council and in 2011, she was appointed vice mayor. She termed out in 2014.
Nguyen said the biggest issues facing the county right now are crime, homelessness and a lack of affordable housing. While she supports permanent supportive housing, she believes that the county needs to address the homelessness crisis quicker by utilizing more transitional housing options. Nguyen said she supports Proposition 36, which would roll back past criminal justice reform and reinstitute harsher penalties for theft and drug crimes.
Her endorsements include former San Jose mayors Chuck Reed and Ron Gonzales, ex-Federal Elections Commissioner Ann Ravel and Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone.
District 5
Margaret Abe-Koga
Abe-Koga, 53, has served on the Mountain View City Council the last 16 years and said she wants to continue her public service and “bring some of the best practices” she’s learned to the county.
“The issues that the county touches on really speaks to me, my background and my lived experiences as a daughter of immigrants, a working mom with two now college-aged daughters, a former small business owner and a breast cancer survivor,” Abe-Koga said. “A lot of the issues that the county touches on are the social safety net issues that my lived experiences I think informed me well on.”
Abe-Koga, who in 2009 became Mountain View’s first Asian-American mayor, previously worked as a congressional aide to Eshoo from 1993 to 1999. Prior to her time on the council, she served on the Santa Clara County Board of Education from 2002 to 2004.
She said that the biggest issues facing the county in the coming years is the budget and future projected deficits. She said having a “strong financial foundation” is critical to providing county services. Abe-Koga said that taking a multi-pronged approach to housing and homelessness is also among her top priorities.
Her endorsements include U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna, Eshoo and Lofrgen and Santa Clara County Supervisors Susan Ellenberg, Otto Lee and Ellenberg.
Sally Lieber
Lieber, 63, was elected to her seat on the California State Board of Equalization in 2022 and represents 10 million residents from Del Norte County in the north to Ventura County in the south. Prior to that, she’s served on the Mountain View City Council and in the California State Assembly, where she was Speaker Pro Tempore.
With her experience, she said she’s “worked all angles of the issues that the county deals with” and also has an interest in social services.
“I really strongly believe that the safety net should be under the stewardship of someone who has knowledge of what the county does and is compassionate in their approach,” Lieber said.
One of the biggest issues facing the county in the coming years, she said, is housing and homelessness. With the proposed $20 billion Bay Area housing bond off the ballot, she said the county needs to come up with a “Plan B” for funding. Lieber said she’d like the county to explore a joint-measure with San Mateo County since many residents work in the neighboring county and vice-versa. She’d also like the county to strengthen its social services safety net.
Lieber’s endorsements include the Santa Clara County Democratic Party, activist Dolores Huerta and San Jose Councilmembers Omar Torres, Peter Ortiz and Domingo Candelas.