4/29/2024 0 Comments Autumn blair facebook![]() The stunning finale is a congressional first for California since the state switched to a jungle primary system in 2012 where the top two vote-getters head to the general election regardless of their party. Overall, the two candidates were separated by less than 1% in nine precincts. The 11 people who voted in person sided with Low, 6 to 5. Mail-in ballots from the residents among Precinct 4692’s stretch of bakeries, boutiques and yoga studios nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains split the vote between Low and Simitian 98-98. No place in the 529-square-mile, two-county congressional district came closer than Schaefer’s Saratoga to reflecting the exquisitely equal tally. The two both voted in California’s congressional District 16 race which ended in an unprecedented tie for second place between Evan Low and Joe Simitian. Linda Schaefer and Chuck Kappen go for a walk, Thursday, April 4, 2024, in Saratoga, Calif. ![]() When the vote count was finally completed this past week after nearly a month of tallying ballots, Low’s and Simitian’s fight for second place resulted in a first: a dead-heat, 30,249-to-30,249 tie that propels both of them into November’s runoff election against former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who finished comfortably in first - unless someone comes forward in the next few days to pay for an expensive recount. ![]() The impact of Schaefer’s single vote - just like the random or calculated decisions of the 182,134 other people who voted in California’s District 16 primary - helped forever intertwine the political biographies of Low, a 40-year-old state Assemblyman, with fellow Democrat Joe Simitian, a 71-year-old Santa Clara County supervisor. “Don’t even ask me if he was a Democrat or Republican. “Don’t ask me why, I just did,” Schaefer said on her walk last week. She’s a conservative Republican who usually votes for like-minded candidates but said she’s had a lot on her mind lately, and when she filled out her ballot in the 11-candidate race to replace retiring Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, she bubbled in the circle next to “Evan Low.” ![]() You might bump into Linda Schaefer walking her shih-tzu down Big Basin Way. To understand the mind-boggling, consequential power of just one vote in this year’s historic District 16 congressional primary, take a stroll through downtown Saratoga, the heart of Santa Clara County’s Precinct No. ![]()
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