Cortese Not Ready To Concede In San Jose Mayoral Race Despite Opponent's Claim To Victory
SANTA CLARA (KCBS)— Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese says he is not ready to concede in the San Jose mayor's race, even though his opponent, City Councilman Sam Liccardo, has already declared victory.
Cortese told KCBS he believed a last-minute "get out the vote" push would have made the difference and put him over the edge to victory.
Liccardo now holds a 51.29 percent majority compared to 48.71 percent who voted for Cortese. But those are not the final numbers.
The registrar said about 25 percent of the ballots cast in the San Jose mayor's race still have not been counted, mostly mail-in ballots submitted on Election Day. Processing all of those ballots is expected to take most of the weekend.
"We've banked on the fact that we had about 300 volunteers out the last couple of weeks and the way the registrar of voters works is that last ballots in are the last ballots out and we're still waiting for literally tens of thousands of ballots to be counted," Cortese said.
Even so, officials say there is only a slim chance that Cortese could eke out a lead given the number of ballots still to be counted.