June 17, 2022
California has adopted a new system under which it no longer holds Republican and Democratic primaries, but rather one primary in which candidates from both major parties as well as independents and third-party candidates all run together. It is nicknamed a “jungle primary.”
It means that in some election districts two members of the same party will emerge as the top two and face each other in November, though in most cases one Democrat and one Republican emerge on top.
The new system was adopted partly in response to the growing partisanship in which individual party primaries tended to advance more extreme candidates. In the jungle primary, candidates commonly try a broader appeal because the voters come from all over the political spectrum.
The Iranian-Americans were running for positions ranging from US congressman to city council.
The candidate who did best—and the only one of the six Iranian-Americans to come out on top was Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, who was running for a seat on the county commission in Santa Cruz County, south of San Jose. She topped 40 percent of the vote against two other candidates.
Three other candidates came in second in their races and will advance to the November general elections as well.
Sam Yebri is running for the Los Angeles City Council District #5. Running against three other candidates, he drew 32 percent of the vote and will face Katy Young Yaroslavsky, who drew 47 percent.
Sarah Aminzadeh is seeking a seat in the State Assembly from District #12, which is centered on Modesto in the San Joaquin Valley. She drew 35.4 percent of the vote and will face Damon Connolly, who drew 38.6 percent in the primary. All four candidates in the primary were Democrats.
Sharona Nazarian was running in a huge field of 11 candidates for a seat on the Beverly Hills City Council. She won 18.07 percent of the vote, trailing behind Lester Friedman who got 18.96 percent.
The other two Iranian-American candidates fell short and were eliminated.
Shervin Aazami was challenging incumbent Rep. Brad Sherman for his seat in the US House of Representatives. Aazami came in fourth of seven candidates with 6.8 percent of the vote. Of the three Democrats challenging Democrat Sherman, Aazami did the best.
David Vahedi was one of seven candidates seeking to become comptroller of the city of Los Angeles. He came in fourth with 8 percent of the vote.
Of the six Iranian-Americans running, four were seeking local offices, which by California law are non-partisan. In the two other races, both the Iranian-American candidates were Democrats.
The jungle primary system is currently used in four states Washington, California, Louisiana and Alaska.
