With a second-place tie, three Democrats appear to be headed to the November ballot in the race for a coveted Silicon Valley congressional seat. The extremely unusual situation comes after weeks of uncertainty, with second-place finishers Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian and Assemblymember Evan Low of Campbell repeatedly trading positions, often while separated by just one or two votes. They appear to have finished the race with 30,249 votes apiece.
A three-way general election happened in an Assembly race in 2016, when former Assemblymember Autumn Burke faced off against two other candidates, as California Target Book research director Rob Pyers noted on Wednesday. But both of the challengers were write-in candidates who tied with 32 primary votes each, making it a non-competitive general election race — and a very different situation from the battle brewing in California's 16th Congressional District.