(Left to proper): Incumbent Santa Clara County District Legal professional Jeff Rosen, challenger , deputy public defender Sajid Khan and Daniel Chung, a latest prosecutor beneath Rosen. (Pictures by Dai Sugano and Courtesy of Christopher Lim)
SAN JOSE — With the calendar flipping into 2022, a three-term incumbent and his essential challenger are each pointing to encouraging indicators of assist of their early campaigns for the workplace of district legal professional in Santa Clara County.
The June major election will mark the primary time that sitting District Legal professional Jeff Rosen will face a contested re-election bid, after having gone with out a challenger in 2014 and 2018.
Considered one of his opponents, deputy public defender Sajid Khan, is working on an aggressive criminal-justice reform platform with the hopes of repeating the political fortunes of Rosen, who in 2010 grew to become the primary particular person within the county to unseat an incumbent DA in almost a century. On the fundraising entrance, Khan’s marketing campaign stories elevating about $236,000 — unfold amongst greater than 1,1000 contributors, half of whom donated lower than $100 — since he publicly declared his candidacy in July. Rosen’s marketing campaign, in the meantime, stories having raised greater than double Khan’s complete, placing him on the $500,000 fundraising restrict for the June 7 major election.
A second challenger, Daniel Chung, who was just lately a prosecutor working beneath Rosen however has turn out to be a harsh critic of his outdated boss since a public falling out, declined to offer details about the standing of his marketing campaign.
A multi-term officeholder, Rosen enjoys broad assist throughout the county’s political management — together with backing from South Bay Rep. Zoe Lofgren, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, and county Supervisor Cindy Chavez — whereas Khan has cultivated a grassroots assist base of social-justice teams, in addition to endorsements from former Rep. Mike Honda, Assemblymember Alex Lee and Mountain View Mayor Ellen Kamei.
Garrick Percival, chair of the political science division at San Jose State College, mentioned that for Rosen, incumbency stays a formidable energy.
“DA races inevitably favor the incumbent. They’re going into the marketing campaign and the election with that historical past,” Percival mentioned. “It’s going to be an uphill battle for each Chung and Khan.”
However he additionally pointed to latest district legal professional races in San Francisco and Los Angeles that noticed reform-minded candidates Chesa Boudin and George Gascón upset incumbents in these cities.
Khan is trying to capitalize on the identical sort of voter sentiment in his electoral bid. His marketing campaign commissioned a ballot of 350 county voters performed by Florida-based SEA Polling and Strategic Design that discovered Khan is aggressive with Rosen after polling topics got “temporary candidate descriptions,” in addition to sturdy assist for alternate options to incarceration and transparency and accountability for regulation enforcement. Nevertheless, that very same ballot additionally discovered Khan trailing in preliminary identify recognition, with 8 % in comparison with 20 % for Rosen and 10 % for Chung, who has finished minimal campaigning.
Citing voter assist for criminal-justice reform poll measures — a minimum of one in all which Rosen has unsuccessfully challenged in courtroom — Khan asserts that folks in Santa Clara County “should not glad with the established order,” and that his lack of previous political workplace is an asset. “I've not been a county official. I've not been a part of this carceral system and a part of the system that has led to a necessity for an alternate and a path ahead.”
“We stay in a neighborhood and state the place we've invested closely over the paste a number of years and many years in policing, arresting, punishing and incarcerating our individuals, and emotions of unsafety have risen regardless of this overwhelming funding,” Khan mentioned. “It has confirmed to us and demonstrated that our pathway ahead to neighborhood security just isn't the continuation of a damaged system.”
However Rosen’s political advisor, Leo Briones, urged that Khan doesn't have unique declare to reform causes, and expressed skepticism at that marketing campaign’s ballot findings.
“DA Rosen’s workplace just isn't involved in inside polls or base politics,” Briones mentioned. “They're too busy working for the security of the 2 million individuals who stay and work in Santa Clara County.”
In a press release, Rosen added that he's “honored to have the endorsement of greater than eighty Santa Clara County elected and retired public servants. I imagine their assist displays the truth that whereas Santa Clara County stays one of many Bay Space’s most secure, we've additionally reduce incarceration charges in half throughout my time as district legal professional.”
Percival mentioned individuals would do “effectively to provide a whole lot of warning” to the Khan marketing campaign’s ballot, noting that the outcomes might be reflective of how the county’s normal voting inhabitants hasn’t had a whole lot of follow speaking concerning the district legal professional given how lengthy it’s been for the reason that workplace was contested.
“It’s largely instructive in that it exhibits there are a whole lot of undecided voters, and rather a lot who don’t know what a DA does. We'd hope that folks do turn out to be extra engaged within the race and extra educated within the workplace,” Percival mentioned. “There’s room for campaigning and persuasion, which may make it probably a aggressive race.”