Wahab Leads Hernandez in Contentious East Bay Special Election for Congress
State Sen. Aisha Wahab narrowly leads BART board director Melissa Hernandez in a fractious special election for Congress in the East Bay that will decide who will temporarily fill the seat formerly held by disgraced Rep. Eric Swalwell.
The race between Wahab and Hernandez, both Democrats, interrupted the typically sleepy summer months for voters in Fremont, Hayward and the Tri-Valley. Though Wahab topped a June primary field by a wide margin, millions of dollars of outside spending have poured into the district — throwing Democratic divisions over Israel and party leadership into stark relief.
In initial returns on Tuesday night, Wahab was ahead of Hernandez 51% to 49% — a lead of fewer than 2,000 votes.
“I’m very proud of this district for not listening to the hate-mongering and really knowing and believing the work that I’ve done,” Wahab told KQED. “We believe that the numbers and the lead will just only grow.”
The infighting is unlikely to end with this week’s results. While the winner of the special election will complete Swalwell’s term through the end of the year, Wahab and Hernandez will again face off on the November general election ballot for a full two-year term.
In an interview, Hernandez said she was still looking forward to seeing more results — and was heartened by the gains she made since finishing well behind Wahab in the special election primary.
“Initially we had a lot of folks in the race … now it’s only us two,” Hernandez said. “So it’s really folks getting to know who I am.”
In the nine-week sprint since the primary, the race has turned into a proxy war for larger divides between moderate and progressive Democrats, said David McCuan, political science professor at Sonoma State University.
“You see a lot of outside money, a lot of outside influences, and you see a battle between two seasoned, smart politicians that isn’t settled this week,” McCuan said.
Wahab, a former Hayward City Council member, has represented the area in the state Senate since 2023. In her run for Congress, she has the backing of the California Democratic Party, the California Federation of Labor Unions and the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution.
Before serving on BART’s board of directors, Hernandez was a councilmember in Dublin and mayor until 2024. She has been endorsed by NewDems, a political group that works to elect moderate Democrats, and nearly a dozen members of California’s Democratic congressional delegation.
The chair of the delegation, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, criticized Wahab this week for her decision not to bow out of the special election in favor of a caretaker candidate. Lofgren said other Democrats had agreed to step aside and back a single candidate — who could have won a majority of votes in the June 16 special election primary and taken office immediately in the closely divided Congress. Wahab has derided the process of picking a caretaker as heavy-handed and out of touch with the district.
In the special election primary, Wahab received 43% of the vote, with Hernandez in second at 17%.
The runoff is much closer, in part the result of a torrent of outside spending in support of Hernandez, much of it from United Democracy Project, the political arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The pro-Israel group has become a flashpoint in Democratic primaries throughout the country. Neither Wahab nor Hernandez has focused their campaign on America’s relationship with Israel — although in a candidate forum this spring, Wahab said she believed what was happening to the Palestinian people constituted a genocide.
Hernandez responded to the yes-or-no question by saying she believed that Israel had a right to defend itself after Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, but that the subsequent destruction in Gaza has gone too far.
United Democracy Project, which cannot coordinate directly with Hernandez’s campaign, has spent $2.4 million to boost Hernandez and sink Wahab. The group has also sent money to BOLD America, another super PAC that has spent over $2 million to help Hernandez.
As she cast her ballot on Tuesday in Castro Valley, Leslie Hall bemoaned the polarizing political moment.
“The divisiveness that we have right now is mind-blowing,” Hall said. “What happened to love?”
KQED’s Jose Velazquez contributed to this report.