San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has bristled at being labeled right-leaning while stressing he’s a lifelong Democrat. His hiring of a self-described conservative to run his California governor campaign could fuel fresh skepticism.
Mahan’s 23-year-old campaign manager, Adrian Rafizadeh, registered as a Republican in 2020, voter records show. Rafizadeh previously worked on Mahan’s mayoral campaign from 2021 to 2022, and as a policy analyst under Mahan as councilmember in 2021. Rafizadeh was also CEO of Back to Basics, a 501(c)(4) advocacy group Mahan launched to tackle homelessness and development policy statewide, in 2024. That role is now filled by Mahan’s former Chief of Staff Jim Reed, who took over the organization in December.
Rafizadeh acknowledged the Republican registration and said he later switched to Democrat before he knew Mahan was considering running for governor. He didn’t answer questions about when exactly he switched parties — or why.
“Mayor Mahan never asked me about which party I belonged to,” Rafizadeh told San José Spotlight. “Just about if I could help him run the kind of thoughtful campaign that focused on solutions to big problems like ending street homelessness, making every neighborhood safe, building more homes and making housing more affordable and lifting more families into the middle class.”
Rafizadeh has not been shy about his conservative leanings in public. But like Mahan, he’s made frequent centrist gestures, such as aligning with liberals on the issue of climate change.
Mahan didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Santa Clara County Democratic Party Chair Bill James said Rafizadeh’s involvement in Mahan’s run for governor is no surprise.
“The campaign manager is a former staffer of his,” James told San José Spotlight. “To me, it’s less a question of, ‘Why is Matt Mahan picking a Republican to be his campaign manager?’ The more revealing question is, ‘Why are Republicans drawn to work for Matt Mahan?’”
James’ conservative counterpart doesn’t claim Mahan either. Santa Clara County Republican Party Chair Dave Johnson has publicly cautioned fellow conservatives against buying Mahan’s moderate image — arguing Mahan is too liberal.
“Mahan is no moderate, no matter who is running his campaign,” Johnson told San José Spotlight.
In prior years, Mahan’s candidacy for local office has been supported by conservative groups such as the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women. He was a special guest during his mayoral campaign at a Bay Area GOP fundraising dinner focused on “taking back San Jose” in 2022. He not only aligned with California Republicans on Proposition 36 — a voter approved initiative to create harsher penalties for petty theft — but helped lead the charge for it. He appeared for TV news interviews across the state to cast doubt on his would-be predecessor, Gov. Gavin Newsom, over attempts to strategize California’s resistance to President Donald Trump.
The mayor of Northern California’s largest city has pushed back at being labeled a conservative. He has instead chalked his platform up to political pragmatism. He’s pushed to tie city employee pay raises to performance. He is against a proposed billionaire tax in California, arguing it would drive billionaires out of state and hurt tax bases supporting critical public services.
President Donald Trump has mirrored Mahan’s platform on homelessness with an executive order in July calling for an end to “housing first” policies in favor of forced treatment. Mahan created a policy to arrest homeless people who repeatedly refuse shelter, arguing that by arresting them, the city could then turn them over to the county’s behavioral court system or a treatment center. Mahan has similarly dismissed housing first policies by prioritizing temporary shelter construction over permanent affordable housing.
“My politics are not center right,” Mahan previously told San José Spotlight last year. “I’m a lifelong Democrat who worked for (former state lawmaker) Jim Beall and has volunteered on most Democratic presidential campaigns and I hold progressive views on a range of issues from taxation and climate change to LGBTQ rights.”
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.