Three candidates running together as the Cupertino Together slate jumped out to an early lead in Cupertino's City Council race, according to returns posted Tuesday night, putting the city's pro-growth and slow-growth factions on track for a potential power shift. John Tang topped the field with 18.6% of the vote, or 4,223 votes, followed by J.R. Fruen with 17.1% (3,886 votes) and Seema Sharma Lindskog with 16.5% (3,741 votes). The trailing five candidates, several tied to the city's preservationist bloc, were running behind the slate as of the early count.
Eight candidates competed for the three open seats on Cupertino's five-person council, as reported by San José Spotlight. The three-seat opening came about because Fruen sought a second term while Vice Mayor Liang Chao was termed out and set to leave office in December, and Councilmember Sheila Mohan chose not to seek reelection. Because it is an at-large election, the top three vote-getters citywide will be seated on the council. Councilmembers Kitty Moore and R. “Ray” Wang, whose terms run until 2028, are not up for election this cycle.
The Cupertino Together slate — Tang, Fruen and Lindskog — ran jointly on a platform built around public safety, housing, and economic and fiscal growth, according to mercurynews.com. Tang is a former president of the Cupertino Chamber of Commerce, while Fruen is an attorney who serves as chief of staff for San Jose Councilmember Rosemary Kamei. The slate's candidates canvassed nearly 11,000 doors during the campaign. Lindskog described her reaction to the early returns as cautiously optimistic, while Tang did not respond to a request for comment.
A Pro-Growth Bid Against an Entrenched Majority
If seated, the three Cupertino Together candidates could shift the council majority toward the pro-growth side for four years. The current council majority — made up of Moore, Wang and Chao — has represented the city's preservationist bloc. The outlet's reporting characterizes Cupertino Together as a pro-growth slate running in what it described in earlier coverage as another high-stakes election between the community's pro-growth and slow-growth factions, per the same account.
Housing remains the biggest issue dividing the two sides, the outlet's report notes, as Cupertino continues to struggle with state-mandated goals to build thousands of homes. Back in September, the slate's candidates said they supported missing-middle housing options such as duplexes and triplexes and wanted to streamline the city's permitting process, the earlier report said. The slate has since built that idea into a 10-year economic growth plan aimed at attracting businesses to the city, also through faster permitting.
Retail Decline and Spending Disputes Shape the Debate
Beyond housing, the race has also turned on the decline of retail in Cupertino, which the publication attributes in part to storefronts being replaced by high-density housing. City spending has also become a flashpoint, with disagreement over the responsible use of tax dollars factoring into the campaign. Those themes echoed through the candidate field beyond the slate itself, which included Planning Commission chair Tracy Kosolcharoen, who ranked fourth with 12.8% of the vote, or 2,905 votes.
Rounding out the field were planning commissioner Santosh Rao, who placed fifth with 12.4% (2,823 votes); Parks and Recreation Commission chair Gopal Kumarappan, sixth with 10.7% (2,420 votes); civil engineer Mark Fantozzi, seventh with 6.4% (1,454 votes); and businesswoman J.Z. Wang, eighth with 5.4% (1,234 votes). Rao cautioned that final election results take days and weeks to fully materialize.
Thousands of Ballots Still Uncounted
Thousands of Ballots Still Uncounted The early returns posted Tuesday night reflect only a fraction of the votes cast across the county. Santa Clara County voter turnout stood at 29.6% as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, and the county had approximately 337,600 ballots still unprocessed, per the county registrar of voters. A Cupertino City Council term runs four years, according to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. The next results update was expected Thursday by 5 p.m., though with so many ballots left to count, the early lead held by Tang, Fruen and Lindskog remains far from a final outcome.
