Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian M.A. ’00 conceded the primary election for California’s 16th district Wednesday evening. This announcement follows a two week-long recount which determined that 26th District Assemblyman Evan Low had the second highest number of votes in the primary. He narrowly beat Simitian with five votes.

Both Simitian and Low were set to join former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo in the November general election to replace Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo as the congressional representative for California’s 16th district, which includes Stanford, after their highly unprecedented tie of exactly 30,249 votes. However, a recount of the votes was requested by a former employee of the Liccardo campaign, Jonathan Padilla, on April 9. According to California’s Code of Regulations, a recount can be requested by any voter so long as the costs associated with a recount are covered. 

San Mateo County’s 16 challenged ballots resulted in Low gaining one more vote than the previous count. Santa Clara County’s recount granted Low an additional 11 votes to Simitian’s seven. 

Simitian stated that he “trusted the process and accepted the result” and was “disappointed, but not sad,” pointing to his family and work ahead of him on the county level. He also congratulated Low and Liccardo, and thanked his campaign.

“I am privileged to hold public office and I will do my best to honor that trust, helping people and solving problems until my last day in office,” he said.

As the second-place winner of the primary with 30,261 total votes, Low will move on to the general election.

In a statement on X, Low thanked every voter for their participation and emphasized the importance of every vote. 

Low said, “I want to express my gratitude to the dedicated staffs of both Registrars of Voters for their meticulous efforts during this unique recount process, and of the dedicated leader, Joe Simitian, whose decades of public service remain an inspiration to me,” he said.