← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · California
No endorsement
The race
East Side Union High School District — San Jose's largest high school district — elects its board by trustee area for the first time in 2026, after adopting Resolution #2025/2026-10 to move from at-large to by-area elections under California Voting Rights Act pressure (a February 2025 CVRA demand letter from Shenkman Hughes alleged the at-large system diluted Latino voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice). Three seats are on the November 3, 2026 ballot, per the Registrar of Voters:
- Area 1 (short term) — contested. Mer Curry Nuñez, Patricia Martínez-Roach, and Paul Pham. This new Alum Rock-area seat carries a two-year term so it can join the presidential cycle in 2028, per the district's waiver filings.
- Area 2 — NOT a contest. Anthony Montes was the only qualified candidate and was appointed in lieu of election under Education Code §5328. No call is made.
- Area 4 — contested. Incumbent Lorena Chavez vs. Tony Lam and Mahbub Khan.
The candidates
### Area 1 (short term)
Mer Curry Nuñez — Credit: Curry Nuñez participated in the League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara candidate forum for this seat (League forum recording, fall 2026) — showing up to answer questions in public is a documented credit. Gap: Her forum answers are available only as video at this pass's sourcing depth; no written platform, campaign site, or endorsement was located. Unproven.
Patricia Martínez-Roach — Record: Martínez-Roach is a repeat candidate for this board whose earlier at-large losses (2024; also 2016) are cited by name in the CVRA demand letter as evidence of racially polarized voting — she is, in effect, the candidate the new map was drawn to give a fair shot. Dirt: The League reported she "did not respond to our invitations to participate" in its Area 1 forum. Declining the district's main public forum is a documented transparency debit — not misconduct, but voters should know it. Gap: No written platform was located.
Paul Pham — Credit: Pham participated in the League of Women Voters forum alongside Curry Nuñez. A Paul Pham also appears as a James Lick High alumnus on the district's Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee roster in the district's 2026 bond annual report; the report does not establish that this is the same person, so we note it as UNPROVEN identity overlap and give it no weight. Gap: No written platform, campaign site, or endorsement was located.
### Area 2 — appointed in lieu of election
Anthony Montes — Credit: Montes has taken the GoodParty.org pledge. Dirt: None located. He takes the seat without a vote because no opponent filed; no further record was located in this pass.
### Area 4
Lorena Chavez (incumbent) — Record: Chavez has served on this board since 2022 (re-elected in the 2022 cycle's at-large race, in which she led the field in early returns) and her term ends in 2026, per the Registrar. In the last cycle she was the only East Side candidate to attend a multi-district community forum on student mental health and substance use, where she addressed the district's priorities in public (San José Spotlight forum coverage). Credit: Long service and willingness to face public forums. Dirt: No misconduct finding was located; the con is programmatic — she is the incumbent of the board that governed through the CVRA fight, and no platform on parental rights, curriculum transparency, or fiscal restraint was located for her re-election.
Tony Lam — Gap: Lam's candidate statement exists as a Registrar audio/video reading (the county's text-to-speech candidate-statement recording); its text was not retrievable in this pass, and no campaign site, platform, or endorsement was located. Unproven; record insufficient.
Mahbub Khan — No campaign site, platform, endorsement, or news mention was located in this pass. Unproven; record insufficient.
Pros and cons
- Curry Nuñez — Pro: Faced the League forum. Con: No written positions located on any issue this page weighs.
- Martínez-Roach — Pro: A known quantity with deep roots in the community the new Area 1 was drawn to represent. Con: Skipped the League forum; no written platform located.
- Pham — Pro: Faced the League forum. Con: No written positions located.
- Chavez — Pro: Incumbent experience; public-forum record. Con: Establishment incumbent; no documented alignment on parental rights, basics, or fiscal restraint.
- Lam — Pro: Filed a candidate statement with the Registrar. Con: Statement text not retrievable; nothing else findable.
- Khan — Pro: None documented. Con: No findable record.
Record gaps
Searches run for every candidate (October 25, 2026): Registrar's district page and Final Qualified List (roster, areas, short-term sequencing); the district's trustee-area transition documents and waiver hearing notice; the CVRA demand letter (Martínez-Roach's and Chavez's earlier races); the League of Women Voters' Area 1 forum listing and recording; GoodParty.org pages; the district's 2026 bond oversight annual report (the Pham overlap, flagged UNPROVEN above); San José Spotlight's East Side archive; candidate-name web searches for campaign sites, questionnaires, and endorsements. Net: East Side's first by-area election drew candidates who largely did not publish — the written record is forum video and filings, not platforms.
OUR CALL
Area 1 — no endorsement (insufficient record). Two candidates faced voters at the League forum and one declined it, but not one of the three published a weighable position on curriculum, parental rights, or district finances. We record Martínez-Roach's forum refusal as a debit and still cannot endorse on this record.
Area 4 — no endorsement (insufficient record / no alignment basis). Chavez is a documented incumbent with no located alignment record; Lam and Khan published nothing findable.
Area 2 — no call. Montes was appointed in lieu of election; there is no contest to decide.
For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website. Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same. --- Sources — bulleted with URLs. - Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters — Final Qualified List of Local Eligible Candidates, Nov 3 2026 General Election — https://files.santaclaracounty.gov/exjcpb1296/2026-09/qualified-list-of-local-candidates-9-28-26.pdf?VersionId=CM6jbwAVTLFIjLakj6hJku2l9KPAIxli - Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters — East Side Union High School District page (terms; Resolution #2025/2026-10 trustee-area transition; Area 1 short term) — https://vote.santaclaracounty.gov/east-side-union-high-school-district - League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara — Candidate Forum, East Side Union HS Trustee Area 1 (Curry Nuñez and Pham participated; Martínez-Roach did not respond) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdHz5Kyc2NM - Shenkman Hughes CVRA demand letter to ESUHSD (Feb. 10, 2025; Martínez-Roach and Chavez 2016/2024 results) — https://d16k74nzx9emoe.cloudfront.net/1191988e-c981-473b-993e-3599c7bbbe2a/Shenkman%20-%20Hughes%20-%20re%20CVRA%20-received%202025-02-14.pdf - GoodParty.org — East Side Union High School Board candidates (Montes pledge; area assignments) — https://goodparty.org/elections/ca/east-side-union-high-school-district/position/local-school-board AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.