Gabby Chavez-Lopez and Anthony Tordillos are running in the June 24, 2025, special runoff election for San Jose City Council District 3.
Chavez-Lopez and Tordillos advanced to the runoff from the nonpartisan special general election on April 8, 2025. Chavez-Lopez received 30.0% of the vote and Tordillos received 22.2%. The two advanced to a runoff because neither received more than 50% of the vote. Tordillos advanced over third-place finisher, Matthew Quevedo, by six votes.
A special election for District 3 was called after incumbent Omar Torres resigned in November 2024. Torres resigned after the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office charged him with three counts of child molestation.
Politico’s Dustin Gardiner and Blake Jones wrote that the election would “determine if progressives or moderates hold a majority on the City Council. Moderates have a one-seat advantage, and if progressives win the council runoff, it would complicate the mayor’s agenda (likely forcing him to take more policy measures to the ballot).” The publication described San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan as a moderate with an “anti-establishment brand of Democratic politics … [including] proposals to arrest homeless people who repeatedly refuse shelter or to tie some city employees’ pay raises to performance metrics.”
Mahan endorsed Tordillos after initially endorsing Quevedo. According to Politico, progressive groups and labor unions, such as South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, endorsed Chavez-Lopez.
In a May 22, 2025, candidate forum hosted by the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and the San Jose Downtown Association, Chavez-Lopez and Tordillos said they would both vote against Mahan’s proposal to arrest homeless people refusing shelter. Chavez-Lopez said she would vote against a pay for performance model for city employees, while Tordillos said he would support it.
Chavez-Lopez is the executive director of Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley. Tordillos chairs the San Jose Planning Commission and is a software engineer for YouTube. An editorial in The Mercury News said, “Tordillos and Chavez-Lopez largely agree on San Jose’s issues. They both believe homelessness remains too rampant; housing, too expensive; building, too bureaucratic; downtown, too blighted; and the feeling of safety, too distant.” They differ on how to solve those issues.
According to San Jose Spotlight, Chavez-Lopez said, “District 3 deserves a representative who knows the neighborhoods, understands the challenges firsthand and has a track record of delivering real results. I’m going to continue to meet voters where they are, listen to their concerns, and offer the proven leadership they’re looking for.” Tordillos said, “Mayor Mahan and I don’t agree on every issue. But coming from the world of tech, we share a belief that data should drive policy discussions, and elected officials should be evaluated by the results they deliver on housing, homelessness and crime.”
San Jose is the 10th most populous city in the country as of May 2025 and has a council-manager system. In this form of municipal government, an elected city council—which includes the mayor and is the city’s primary legislative body—appoints a chief executive called a city manager to oversee day-to-day operations and implement the council’s policy and legislative initiatives.