{"id":362659,"date":"2026-06-16T11:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T11:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/362659\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T11:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T11:29:12","slug":"polls-open-today-for-special-election-to-replace-swalwell-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/362659\/","title":{"rendered":"Polls open today for special election to replace Swalwell \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Polls will open at 7 a.m. today in a special primary election<\/a> to decide who will temporarily replace Rep. Eric Swalwell<\/a> for the remainder of his term in Congress.<\/p>\n

Eleven candidates are on the ballot for Congressional District 14, including several candidates who previously ran in the June 2 primary election for the new term. The district covers parts of the East Bay and Tri-Valley, including cities such as Fremont, Hayward, Dublin, and Livermore.<\/p>\n

Swalwell abandoned his seat earlier this year after resigning and dropping his gubernatorial campaign over sexual misconduct allegations made against him by multiple women.<\/p>\n

Repeat candidates running in both primaries include State Sen. Aisha Wahab<\/a>, with latest returns showing her with over 38% of the vote from the earlier primary, likely sending her to the November general election.<\/p>\n

BART Board President Melissa Hernandez<\/a> is also running in the special election. Returns from the June 2 primary showed her in second place with about 17% of the vote.<\/p>\n

If the June 2 election results hold, Wahab and Hernandez could face off in November to decide who permanently takes the job.<\/p>\n

Other repeat candidates appearing on the special election ballot include Democrat Rakhi Israni, a first-time political candidate who loaned her campaign over $1 million of her own money; and Republicans Wendy Huang and Dena Maldonado. Latest returns show Huang received about 13% of the June 2 primary vote, followed by Israni\u2019s 12.95%, and Maldonado\u2019s 12.14%.<\/p>\n

New candidates on the special primary ballot include Democrats Alisha Cordes, Sheriene Ridenour, and Jot Thiara; Republicans Tom Wong and Jack Wu; and independent Victor Zevallos.<\/p>\n

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the special election, the top two will face off in a special general election on Aug. 18 to fill the rest of the temporary term.<\/p>\n

Alameda County has multiple voting centers<\/a> throughout the district. Polls will close at 8 p.m. For more information and voting locations, visit acvote.alamedacountyca.gov\/election-information\/elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Polls will open at 7 a.m. today in a special primary election to decide who will temporarily replace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1400,389,127495,184,7,8,400,2954,7626,332,82306,204,394,2955,181,17030,23,2582,100,143,145,144,2650,13,94685,398,43205,6392],"class_list":["post-362659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-2026-elections","tag-alameda-county","tag-alameda-county-elections","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-castro-valley","tag-dublin","tag-east-bay","tag-east-bay-elections","tag-election","tag-fremont","tag-hayward","tag-latest-headlines","tag-livermore","tag-local-news","tag-national-politics","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pleasanton","tag-politics","tag-social-alert","tag-tri-valley","tag-union-city","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}