Sacramento’s most liberal councilwoman holds on to hope through Election Night | Opinion
“I’ll get nervous at midnight,” said Sacramento City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela after the first poll numbers dropped a little after 8 p.m. on Election Night.
Valenzuela’s party was at midtown Sacramento bar and grill, Kupros Craft House, a building that has — in some form or another — been a part of Sacramento’s downtown community since 1910. Valenzuela’s slightly newer to the city annals; just since 2020, when she blazed into office on a wave of progressive support, unseating then-councilman and current-mayoral candidate Steve Hansen.
On that primary night four years ago, Valenzuela swung into a surprise victory over the incumbent, outperforming almost everyone’s expectations to become the furthest left member of the Sacramento City Council. Her win was unexpected to say the least, and she represented a new generation of city leaders.
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Her fate would be decided once more on primary night 2024; another tough fight, but in different ways, for a now-incumbent Valenzuela. Not only was the district redrawn in 2022, but her reputation as a Democratic Socialist preceded her, and a low voter turnout threatened to hand the election to her opponent: a former Planning and Design Commissioner and current darling of the city’s business set, Phil Pluckebaum.
Valenzuela, no slouch in fundraising herself with about $100,000, couldn’t hope to match the sheer amount of contributions from wealthy names who flooded money into Pluckebaum’s campaign. Pluckebaum also won endorsements from the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the California Apartment Association and the Sacramento Police Officers Association.
Valenzuela’s biggest funders were the California Nurses Association, Sacramento Central Labor Council and Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522.
Local historians will be hard-pressed to gauge exactly what redistricting did to Valenzuela’s campaign, but it didn’t help her. The district she was elected into in 2020 included downtown, Midtown, Land Park and a small triangle of Natomas. Officially, that’s still the district Valenzuela represents. With this election, the district will shift to the central city, including the River District, River Park and — importantly — East Sacramento. A map of early voting trends by The Bee showed Pluckebaum carrying the East Sacramento neighborhoods that were not part of the district Valenzuela won in 2020.
Nevertheless, her campaign party was in full swing by 9 p.m. Tuesday night, despite early numbers that placed her at just 36% of the vote. As supporters and volunteers moved in and out of the upstairs bar, Valenzuela moved from group to group, accepting hugs and encouragement from the Sacramentans who loved her best. Everyone was trying hard not to talk about what would happen if Pluckebaum won the night.
“The early returns are not looking good for Katie, that makes me pretty anxious,” said Jeanie Ward-Waller, a longtime supporter of Valenzuela’s campaign.
“Kings games never start off strong,” said Makeez Sawez, a District 4 resident. “But then somehow in the second quarter, it’s always a full house.”
“We only get a tiny snapshot on election night of what the vote’s going to look like,” said MIchelle Pariset, Valenzuela’s former chief of staff and currently the Director of Legislative Affairs for Public Advocates. “I have been watching how hard all of these awesome volunteers have been working and I think we’re going to see the gap close and she’ll overtake (Pluckebaum.)”
As the night went on, volunteers slowly left — many of them headed to Flo Cofer’s party in Old Sacramento — and Valenzuela got increasingly anxious, waiting for the excruciatingly slow release of election results.
By 10 p.m., only about a small batch of votes had been added to the city’s official tally, mostly in her favor, but not enough to constitute a rally.
So what happens if the incumbent loses? Valenzuela will have another eight months on council before the seat switches. “I’ll do what I’ve always done,” she said. “I’ll do the environmental justice policy that I’ve been doing part-time and I don’t stop fighting for the things I’ve been fighting for.”
By 11 p.m., there was a surge in energy (the bar at Cofer’s party had closed, someone said) and the room got loud again. The cookies with Valenzuela’s logo were all gone, and the candidate, who’d spent the last 40 weeks walking districts and had been sitting in a comfortable chair for the last hour, jumped up again for a fresh injection of enthusiasm. But the long night had no definite end: The next batch of ballots wouldn’t come in until midnight, and honestly — it could be days before the final tally is official.
“No matter what happens, I’m 1000% happy with everything we’ve done. And it’s not over,” said one campaign volunteer, clinking his pint against Valenzuela’s bottle of ginger beer as Election Night waned into Wednesday morning. “It’s never over.”
