Those who need a reminder of the power of a single vote should look no further than California’s 16th Congressional District, where the race to be among the finalists for a safe Democratic House seat in Silicon Valley is currently segregated by one vote.

Former mayor of San Jose

Sam Licardo

has retained the first-place lead in the race to replace retiring Rep. Anna Eshoo of Menlo Park, but the battle for second place has been much more volatile, with Santa Clara County Supervisor

Joe Simitian

and Assemblymember Evan Low of Campbell

(D-Campbell)

change places repeatedly. All three are Democrats.

On Monday afternoon, almost three weeks after Election Day, Simitian’s lead over Low was reduced to one vote. Bee one point last week, Low led Simitian by two votes. The top two finishers will advance to the November general election.

Have a competitive race

so close

for a large office

being so close

is “shockingly unusual,” said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic strategist and political data expert.

The current state of affairs is made all the more atypical by the fact that Low and Simitian are both top candidates with serious campaigns that have raised significant funds and currently hold elected office, Mitchell said.

He suggested that if there were any other recent examples in California of major races where second and third place were so close, this would almost certainly be a race in which the dueling second and third place finishers were “random nobodies”. who had collected only a small fraction of the votes and were not serious contenders.

Eshoo announced her retirement in November after more than 30 years in Congress. The district includes part of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, including the cities of Palo Alto and Mountain View, and part of the city of San Jose. Democrats have a more than 3-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans in the district, according to data from California Target Book.

The vast majority of ballots have already been counted, but the next set of results from both Santa Clara and San Mateo counties are expected to be released late Tuesday afternoon.