Former councilman Vinnie Bacon and District 5 councilman and two-time Vice Mayor Raj Salwan were the frontrunners in a four-candidate contest to replace Fremont Mayor Lily Mei, who is terming out after her second four-year term in office.
Politically moderate Salwan was endorsed by an extensive list of pro-labor groups and business leaders, and won with 47% of the votes. Opponent Bacon trailed Salwan with 31%.
The prominence of the two leading candidates among the four running—Rohan Marfatia and Hui Ng gained 11.8% and 9.8% of the votes, respectively—led to the Fremont Chamber of Commerce hosting mayoral debate on October 7 and initially inviting only Salwan and Bacon. After complaints from Marfatia that all candidates should be included, the debate was expanded to invite all four, although Ng was not able to attend.
The mayoral campaign was riddled with political attacks from both candidates. Both self-raised around $200,000 for their campaigns, mainly used to counter negative ads from their opponent.
Salwan has served on the Fremont City Council for the past eight years and served for two years in 2013-2014. He has been vice mayor twice.
The mayor-elect prioritized homelessness, public safety, traffic solutions, infrastructure improvement, and climate change on the campaign trail.
Along with the mayoral race, three city council member positions were included on the Fremont ballot.
In Fremont’s District 1, Teresa Keng led the race with 64%, leaving opponents Ranvir Sandhu and Pravesh Kumar at 21% and 15%, respectively. Keng has been a Fremont council member since 2018 and was re-elected in 2020.
District 5 winner, Yajing Zhang, beat Chandra Wagh and Sterling Jefferson Engle. Zhang has lived in Fremont for 20 years and is the President of Fremont Unified School District’s Board of Education.
Fremont’s District 6 had the closest race of the three District positions. Raymond Liu beat incumbent Teresa Cox with only a 2% lead. Liu’s campaign focused on addressing the city’s past misconduct and crime rates.
