Silicon Valley voters this November will cast ballots in one of the region’s most consequential elections: From deciding who to send to Washington to a historic county supervisorial election, there is no shortage of major decisions up and down the ballot.

Former San Jose planning commissioner and foster kid John Leyba has two issues at the top of his list: health and human services. Running for termed-out Supervisor Dave Cortese’s seat, Leyba said he decided to join the race after watching the homeless population grow, whether in camps spread across downtown San Jose, along the Guadalupe...

After losing to Supervisor Dave Cortese in 2008, former Sunnyvale Mayor Otto Lee is making another run for the District 3 seat on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. This time around, Lee is running with the message that the county must act quickly to better address the region’s most pressing concerns of homelessness, lack...

While most candidates are trying to climb the political ladder, Kansen Chu is doing the opposite — he is leaving the state Legislature to seek a local office in his hometown. Chu, who immigrated to California from Taiwan in the late 1970s to study electrical engineering at Cal State, Northridge, is running against three other...

Running for the Santa Clara County Supervisor seat is somewhat of a personal homecoming for Magdalena Carrasco. A San Jose councilmember since 2015, the lifelong resident has her sight set on returning to the government building she worked in for 11 years of her life as a social worker, campaigning to fill Dave Cortese’s seat...

San Jose City Council candidate Jim Zito is regularly asked where his thick accent comes from. Proud of his Brooklyn roots and Italian-American heritage, he is quick to reply. “I’m happy to share my answer,” Zito says on his campaign website. “In the very early 1900s both my mother and father’s parents came to America as...

An advocate for families and children, District 8 San Jose Councilmember Sylvia Arenas said she is not a politician — she’s a public servant. The distinction is notable — her role as a public servant did not begin when she assumed elected office, rather when she began to dedicate her career to serving a community...

Ruben Navarro said he doesn’t mind having the odds stacked against him — he’s been “fighting those odds” his whole life. Now, Navarro, along with Jake Tonkel and Marshall Woodmansee, is challenging Councilmember Dev Davis for the San Jose City Council District 6 seat, which covers Willow Glen and the Rose Garden. His launch into...

Dev Davis is proud of her first four years representing San Jose’s District 6 on the City Council, but says there’s more work to do as she defends her seat from three challengers. The 41-year-old Marvel enthusiast, mother of two and Stanford University graduate said she initially ran because she wanted to bring back lost...

Marshall Woodmansee may be the youngest person running for City Council in San Jose, but he speaks with the confidence of someone who has spent years thinking about issues facing the South Bay city. The 19-year-old District 6 native has run one of the most grassroots campaigns in the race so far. He hasn’t locked...