Santa Clara voters have selected their new chief of police and city clerk, with early results showing Cory Morgan holding a significant lead in the race to replace Police Chief Pat Nikolai, who is retiring this year.
As of 4:58 p.m. on Friday, Morgan is leading with 66.2% of the vote. He is trailed by San Jose Police Department Lt. Mario Brasil, who has secured 33.8% of the vote. The city is also poised to reelect two incumbents and bring two new faces onto the City Council.
The county’s voter turnout is about 53.9% and more than 565,000 ballots have been cast. As of Friday there are 238,000 ballots left to be counted. The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, which counts votes for ballots countywide, does not have a breakdown of votes by city yet.
Morgan, 46, joined the Santa Clara Police Department in 2007 and was promoted to lieutenant in 2020. He previously told San José Spotlight that his priority will be building up the department’s staff, which he said is 20% understaffed and has the funding necessary to hire more officers.
His opponent, Brasil, has lived in Santa Clara his whole life, though he works for the San Jose Police Department. Brasil, 50, said if elected he would have prioritized hiring and improving the department’s transparency by updating its website and utilizing more technology.
Morgan was joined by a handful of supporters while they watched the first election results roll in Tuesday night. He said he’s looking forward to the next round of votes to be published Wednesday at 5 p.m., since that will show what direction the vote is trending, as there are thousands of votes left to count.
“It’s definitely exciting, (I’m) encouraged by the lead, but I still recognize that there’s a lot of votes to be counted,” Morgan told San José Spotlight.
Voters also picked their next city clerk, as Hosam Haggag did not file for reelection. Retired California Highway Patrol Lt. Robert O’Keefe is leading with 30.9% of the vote. He’s trailed by Poornima Gopi, who secured 27.3% of the vote. Steve Kelly received 26.9% and Paul Tacci netted 14.8% of the vote.
O’Keefe did not respond to a request for comment. According to his website and candidate statement, he plans to prioritize the city clerk’s role as chief elections administrator, saying it’s important that the role remain nonpartisan.
O’Keefe ran for city council in 2020 against Councilmember Suds Jain and lost. After that, he served one year on the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury, which has since blasted the sitting council multiple times for its dysfunction and handling of Levi’s Stadium.
Kelly, 62, served on the Santa Clara Planning Commission for eight years and said he wanted to prioritize voter outreach and engagement, especially among young voters.
Santa Clara voters resoundingly approved to keep electing their police chiefs and city clerks after two measures failed in the March primaries to change them to appointed positions.
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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