If you live in Sacramento County’s fifth district or in the City of Sacramento’s District 3, you’re going to see only one bubble on the ballot for these races.
Sacramento City Councilmember Karina Talamantes and Sacramento County Board Supervisor Pat Hume are both running for reelection without challengers. Voters can still write in, but neither race has had a prominent opponent before the filing deadline.
In a place as politically active as Sacramento, the state’s capitol, is it unusual to see local races go uncontested?
Kim Nalder is a political scientist at Sacramento State. She said that in general, races where incumbents don’t face a threat are quite common in smaller local races. This can mean less pressure to run a campaign when their re-election seems certain.
“Competition drives more engagement and attention to a race, and when there's none, you won't hear very much about it,” Nalder said. “There's very little motivation for the unopposed candidate to put out much of a campaign.”
According to Nalder, local races are often less covered in the news and hardly get the public’s attention. She said that makes it harder for a new challenger to come in and build name recognition.
“The further down the ballot you get, the stronger the incumbency advantage becomes,” Nalder said. “Most people don’t know who these officials are unless they’re directly impacted by a policy issue.”
CapRadio spoke with the two incumbent leaders about the lack of opposition and what it could mean for voters.
Karina Talamantes, Sacramento City Council, District 3
Vice Mayor Karina Talamantes has represented the neighborhoods South Natomas, Northgate and Gardenland since 2022.
Talamantes comes from a working-class family and has dedicated most of her life to public service. Before representing District 3, Talamantes served on the Sacramento County Board of Education.
Talamantes told CapRadio that she believes her commitment to being accessible attributed to her lack of challengers.
“ I host open office hours at donuts and coffee from 9 to 10 every second Thursday of the month. For me, that's an opportunity to listen to residents about their concerns,” Talamantes said. “I think that those office hours have helped me build trust, transparency and accountability at City Hall.”
Talamantes said her past campaigns– which include her 2018 run for the Sacramento County Board of Education and her 2022 run for her current District 3 Council seat– were very competitive.
“ I've ran two campaigns back to back that were extremely competitive. very political,” She said. “In both of those campaigns, I knocked on doors from sunrise to sundown and I would be ready to do it again this year.”
When asked about concern over a lack of options, Talamantes noted that residents in her District have other important races, which include the Sacramento Board of Supervisors District 1 race and California’s 6th Congressional District seat.
Her priorities for her next term include public safety, homelessness, affordability and growing the city’s revenue.
“One of the biggest problems that we have is we have a lack of police officers,” She said. “A lot of them have to work overtime, and so we need to step it up on recruitment and making sure that the City of Sacramento is a good place for them to work and stay.”
In terms of economic development, Talamantes said one of her next priorities in her second term is to support businesses along the Sacramento River in her district.
“We talk a lot about our waterfront here in Old Sacramento, but people forget we also have the waterfront on the Garden Highway,” she said. “I want to activate our waterfront and have it be a place where people can come and hang out on a Friday night.”
District 3 resident and former mayor Heather Fargo said that she’s content with Talamantes’ leadership.
“District 3 has gotten a lot more attention under Karina than it has for quite a while,” she said. “I think it’s because we have a councilwoman who lives in the district, which we haven’t had for a number of years.”
Before the city council districts were redrawn in 2021, District 3 was made up of half of South Natomas, downtown and East Sacramento. Fargo said she felt that the way the district was previously comprised led to neglect of the Northern area.
“That changed the dynamic of who got elected, because we no longer were competing with East Sacramento or downtown for a representative,” Fargo said.
Fargo noted that it’s not uncommon for a city council race to go uncontested, especially when constituents feel looked after.
“People are feeling a lot of attention. We’ve had more things going on in District 3 than ever before,” she said. I don’t think it’s unusual to not have a contest. It usually comes about when people are not happy with what’s going on.”
Pat Hume, Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, District 5
Supervisor Pat Hume represents the county’s fifth district. It includes the cities of Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, and Galt—stretching into the south rural Delta communities.
The area is one of the fastest-growing regions out of the five districts. The district represents more than 300,000 people.
Hume was elected to the board in 2022 in a close race against Jaclyn Moreno to replace longtime supervisor Don Nottoli. Before he joined the board, he was on the Elk Grove City Council for years.
Hume told CapRadio he believes the lack of challengers reflects the work he has done during his first term.
“I don’t think there was really a lot of hue and cry out there to take me out, to replace me,” Hume said. “So I think that obviously if I weren’t doing a good job, that would be different.”
Still, he said he knows the value of campaigns in creating opportunities to interact directly with voters.
“The best part of campaigning is the exchange of ideas and getting to talk to people about what’s important to them,” he said.
Hume said that the fifth district is different from the others. The concerns he hears from people within his district vary by region. In Elk Grove, according to Hume, residents often are focused on growth and public transportation, but more rural and Delta communities raise concerns about water rights and agriculture.
Freedom in focusing on the job, not competition
Hume said not having to run a campaign has allowed him to spend that time focused on the work he will continue to do as a supervisor and addressing his constituents' concerns.
“Really liberating to be able to focus on the job and not focus on a campaign,” Hume said. “I’m going to continue trying to improve the state of our roads, emergency medical service delivery, and make sure that public safety is well funded.”
For Talamantes, the lack of challengers gives her an opportunity to reintroduce herself to her constituents.
“ We have a lot of new residents,” Talamantes said. “For the people that didn't vote for me, it's me still reaching out and saying hello and thank you for giving me this opportunity.”
In the case of local government, Nadler said that it is relatively common to have an uncontested race for a variety of reasons– ranging from time commitment to the amount of work that goes into the actual job.
“ We would start to get concerned if it became more widespread or if we saw it in higher level races as well,” She said. “ When you see it here and there at the local level, that's not unexpected. These are sort of difficult jobs that aren't glamorous, and it's not surprising that there's not insane competition for some of them.”
Another factor Nalder points to in local races going uncontested is the time and money it takes to run. This can discourage a potential challenger if they already see it as something difficult to win.
“One of the assumptions in democracy is that re-election is a motivation for elected officials to be responsive to the will of the voters. It’s not ideal if they aren’t worried about any threat of losing an election,” she said.
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