Devora Davis

This page was current at the end of the official's last term in office covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Devora Davis

Nonpartisan

Prior offices

San Jose City Council District 6

Successor: Michael Mulcahy

---

Report an officeholder change

Elections and appointments

Last election

June 7, 2022

Education

Bachelor's

Oakland University

Graduate

Stanford University

Personal

Religion

Episcopalian

Profession

Research analyst

Contact

Campaign Facebook

Campaign Twitter

Campaign Instagram

Campaign YouTube

Personal website

Personal Facebook

Personal LinkedIn

Devora Davis (also known as Dev) was a member of the San Jose City Council in California, representing District 6. She assumed office in 2017. She left office on December 31, 2024.

Davis ran for election for Mayor of San Jose in California. She lost in the primary on June 7, 2022.

Although city council elections in San Jose are officially nonpartisan, Davis was previously known to be affiliated with the Republican Party. In June 2018, Davis re-registered as no party preference.

Biography

Email editor@ballotpedia.org to notify us of updates to this biography.

Davis received a B.S. in economics from Oakland University and an M.P.P. from Stanford University.

As of her run for city council in 2016, Davis was a policy analyst for Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes. Her professional experience also includes works as a data analyst for the nonprofit network of public charter schools Knowledge Is Power Program.

Davis has served as vice chair of the San Jose Early Care and Education Commission, state public affairs delegate for the Junior League of San Jose, treasurer of the Kinship, Adoptive, and Foster Parent Association of Santa Clara County, president of the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, and public relations and student engagement chair for the Sherman Oaks Playground Committee.

She also has experience on the Caltrain, Finance, Power, Transportation, and Environment committees on the San Jose City Council; the VTA, Housing & Construction, Smart Cities, Rules, and Water Treatment committees on the San Jose City Council; and the Retirement, Emergency Preparedness, Historic Landmarks, and Sports Authority Boards.

Elections

2022

See also: Mayoral election in San Jose, California (2022)

General election

General election for Mayor of San Jose

Matt Mahan defeated Cindy Chavez in the general election for Mayor of San Jose on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Matt Mahan (Nonpartisan)	51.2	128,376
		Cindy Chavez (Nonpartisan)	48.8	122,329

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 250,705
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Mayor of San Jose

The following candidates ran in the primary for Mayor of San Jose on June 7, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Cindy Chavez (Nonpartisan)	39.1	65,501
✔		Matt Mahan (Nonpartisan)	32.3	54,076
		Devora Davis (Nonpartisan)	10.9	18,235
		Raul Peralez (Nonpartisan)	9.0	15,121
	Submit photo	James Spence (Nonpartisan)	6.9	11,549
	Submit photo	Travis Nicholas Hill (Nonpartisan)	1.0	1,722
		Marshall Woodmansee (Nonpartisan)	0.7	1,199

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 167,403
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Jonathan Esteban (Nonpartisan)

2020

See also: City elections in San Jose, California (2020)

General election

General election for San Jose City Council District 6

Incumbent Devora Davis defeated Jake Tonkel in the general election for San Jose City Council District 6 on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Devora Davis (Nonpartisan)	53.9	24,340
		Jake Tonkel (Nonpartisan)	46.1	20,840

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 45,180
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for San Jose City Council District 6

Incumbent Devora Davis and Jake Tonkel defeated Ruben Navarro and Marshall Woodmansee in the primary for San Jose City Council District 6 on March 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Devora Davis (Nonpartisan)	48.4	13,175
✔		Jake Tonkel (Nonpartisan)	27.9	7,596
	Submit photo	Ruben Navarro (Nonpartisan)	16.7	4,557
		Marshall Woodmansee (Nonpartisan)	7.0	1,910

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 27,238
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Endorsements

To view Davis' endorsements in the 2020 election, please click here.

2016

The city of San Jose, California, held elections for five of its nine city council seats on June 7, 2016. While the June election was called a primary, it was functionally a general election.

If no candidate won a majority (50 percent plus one) of the votes cast in a primary, the top two vote-getters in the race advanced to an election on November 8, 2016. The November election was called a general election, but it was functionally a runoff election. Devora Davis defeated Helen Chapman in the general election for San Jose City Council District 6.

San Jose City Council District 6, General Election, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Devora Davis	53.85%	20,360
Helen Chapman	46.15%	17,450
Total Votes		37,810
Source: Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, "Official Final Results," December 8, 2016

The following candidates ran in the primary election for San Jose City Council District 6.

San Jose City Council District 6, Primary Election, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Devora Davis	20.54%	4,801
Helen Chapman	20.18%	4,715
Norm Kline	16.47%	3,850
Ruben Navarro	9.90%	2,314
Peter Allen	9.59%	2,241
Erik Fong	8.93%	2,086
Chris Roth	7.94%	1,855
Myron Von Raesfeld	6.45%	1,507
Total Votes (100% reporting)		23,369
Source: Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, "Unofficial Semifinal Results," accessed June 27, 2016

Endorsements

Davis received endorsements from the following in 2016:

• Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility
• San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce PAC
• Santa Clara County Association of Realtors
• Santa Clara County Republican Party
• Silicon Valley Chinese Association
• San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo
• San Jose Vice Mayor Rose Herrera
• San Jose City Councilman Johnny Khamis

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Devora Davis did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.

2020

Devora Davis completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Davis' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am currently serving as Councilwoman to District 6 in San Jose, and I'm a mother of two. In my time as councilwoman, I have worked hard to be collaborative and to do what is best for the residents of District 6 and our city. We've accomplished a lot in my tenure as councilwoman, but there's still a lot of work to do. We need experienced leadership to navigate the economic crisis caused by COVID-19.

I welcome your thoughts and ideas on how to make San José an even better place to live. Please call or text me at (408) 479-4864 if you'd like to discuss local issues or have ideas about possible solutions.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Improve public safety, preparedness, and disaster resilience for our neighborhoods
• Protect single-family home neighborhoods while adding to our permanent housing supply and mitigating homelessness and its impacts
• Help our residents and businesses recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic and clean up the blight that has gotten out of control this year

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Economic policy and education. I believe that these two areas of public policy address the root cause of a lot of problems cities face.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

Abraham Lincoln kept our country together in a time of crisis, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought us out of the Great Depression. Both leaders put ideology aside and made decisions based on what was best for our country. That is the kind of leader I try to be.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

My ability to analyze data and interpret it to make innovative policy decisions and my willingness to have open dialogue with my residents and listen to a wide variety of opinions before making decisions are what make me a successful officeholder. Most importantly, I care for the community that we've chosen to live and raise our kids in.

Do you believe that it's beneficial for holders of this office to have previous experience in government or politics?

If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that we need steady hands in our government to guide us through crises. When a crisis strikes, we don't have time to figure out the machinations of government and who to call. San Jose did an excellent job responding to the COVID-19 crisis because we have experienced elected leaders who make decisions based on data and outcomes, not hopes and dreams.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

2016

See also: Ballotpedia's municipal government candidate survey

Davis participated in Ballotpedia's 2016 survey of municipal government candidates. The following sections display her responses to the survey questions. When asked what her top priority would be if elected, the candidate made the following statement:

“

Making sure that our five core services (police, fire, roads, parks, and libraries) are fully funded through a fiscally responsible plan.

”

When asked what she would most like to change about the city, the candidate made the following statement:

“

Streamline the Planning and Permitting Process to encourage citizens and businesses to grow without burden.

”

When asked what she is most proud of about the city, the candidate made the following statement:

“

San Jose is an amazingly diverse city and a great city for families with its many museums, parks, trails, art installations, and performing arts venues.

”

Ranking the issues

The candidate was asked to rank the following issues by importance in the city, with 1 being the most important and 12 being the least important. This table displays this candidate's rankings from most to least important:

Issue importance ranking
Candidate's ranking	Issue
1	Government transparency
2	Crime reduction/prevention
3	City services (trash, utilities, etc.)
4	Civil rights
5	Transportation
6	Housing
7	K-12 education
8	Unemployment
9	Homelessness
10	Recreational opportunities
11	Public pensions/retirement funds
12	Environment

Positions on the issues

The candidate was asked to answer four questions from Ballotpedia regarding issues facing cities across America. The questions are in the left column and the candidate's responses are in the right column:

Question	Response
Is it important for the city’s budget to be balanced?	Very important
Which level of government do you feel should set a minimum wage?	State
What do you think is the best way to improve a city’s public safety?	Creating an efficient system to enable police offers to be most effective and taking a comprehensive approach to safety through fair and impartial policing practices.
How do you think your city should emphasize economic development?	With a four-point plan which includes Public-Private partnerships, improving the business experience, an aggressive marketing campaign, and increasing the housing supply to make it more affordable.

Additional themes

Davis' 2016 campaign website highlighted the following issues:

“

Public Safety The most important function of any city is to ensure its residents' safety. Currently, San José has roughly one police officer for every 1,000 residents. This means the city is unable to meet its Envision 2040 response time guidelines for high priority calls. There is no doubt we need more sworn officers. However, recruiting, identifying, and training new officers takes time. Given the size of our recent recruit classes, rebuilding the city’s police force will take years. We need to find creative solutions to keep the public safe now. '…CSOs could assist with neighborhood and school outreach programs, assist with event security, parking enforcement, and patrolling property crime hot spots.' One creative solution is to help our strained police force by deploying more non-sworn Community Service Officers (CSOs). These civilian employees, who can be trained in six weeks, already help shoulder some of the policing burden, and they can do more. Currently, CSOs investigate property crimes and missing persons, prepare police reports, examine some crime scenes, and direct traffic at events and accident sites. Going forward, San José should consider expanding their duties. For example, CSOs could assist with neighborhood and school outreach programs, assist with event security, parking enforcement, and patrolling property crime hot spots. While CSOs should not be allowed to make arrests, conduct traffic stops, or apprehend suspects, they can nonetheless be an authoritative presence that will help deter property crimes. Dev has studied CSOs in depth and co-authored a paper on their use along a team of her fellow Stanford University Master of Public Policy Program candidates. You can read the full report, including an executive summary here. 'The police department needs to fully implement predictive policing models to ensure that police patrols are effectively deterring crime where it's most likely to occur.' As stated above, we need hundreds of additional officers. This will take years to accomplish. In the mean time, another creative solution to improving public safety is to leverage technology to make policing more efficient. The police department needs to fully implement predictive policing models to ensure that police patrols are effectively deterring crime where it's most likely to occur. In addition, the city should consider subsidizing home security cameras in areas where a critical mass of residents agree to participate in a voluntary video registry.

”

“

Local Jobs San José only has 84 jobs for every 100 employed residents – well below the Envision 2040 goal of 130 jobs per 100 employed residents. In contrast, most cities surrounding San José have more jobs than residents. This means too many residents are spending valuable time commuting when they could be having dinner with their families. Providing residents with more employment opportunities makes fiscal sense as well since businesses bring in tax revenue without using as many city services as housing. '…too many residents are spending valuable time commuting when they could be having dinner with their families.' The city has been working on this issue for a decade with some important successes. The new Samsung headquarters and Apple expansion in North San José are notable recent developments. Now the city needs to build on that progress by making three important changes. The first idea builds on an already successful model in another area of the city. Team San José has been a promising public-private partnership to make San José a tourist destination. A similar public-private partnership is needed to make San José an employment center. Second, the city should ensure that its Economic Development office, and all offices that engage with new or relocating businesses, are focused on improving the business experience in San José. Permitting and inspection processes should be streamlined. Further, San José should ensure that each prospective business has an ambassador – a city employee or private sector liaison who helps guide them through the entire process of establishing a presence in our city. Third, the city needs to market itself more aggressively. San José is a great place to live for people from all walks of life, but it's especially suited for families. As the start-ups of Silicon Valley mature, so will their workers. The new public-private partnership's main task will be to let them know that San José is the ideal location to expand – both for their business and for their employees. If elected, I intend to constantly work to encourage new businesses to choose San José. '…the Bay Area needs a regional, long-term solution with commitments from job-rich cities to allow for more housing in their cities. I support the formation of a regional coalition of leaders to address this issue. I do NOT support re-zoning San José's industrial land to build more housing.' An important element for attracting businesses is affordable housing. This is an especially challenging issue because housing costs are determined by regional supply and demand. San José is doing what it can based on the general plan's guidelines to build additional housing in the Downtown area and in new urban villages that are already being constructed across the city. However, the Bay Area needs a regional, long-term solution with commitments from job-rich cities to allow for more housing in their cities. I support the formation of a regional coalition of leaders to address this issue. I do NOT support re-zoning San José's industrial land to build more housing. However, some creative partial re-zoning may be possible in some areas if job creation can be maintained. Ultimately, the city must balance families' dual needs – both jobs and housing have to be part of the equation.

”

“

Neighborhoods Neighborhood roads have been neglected for too long due to city budget deficits. We must ensure a high quality of life for residents by fixing potholes and addressing the backlog of street maintenance. 'Cities…are getting residents involved through participatory budgeting. In these cities, residents work together to first decide on spending priorities and then devise specific projects based on these priorities.' In tight budget times, it is even more important for residents to be actively involved in the other public decisions that affect their quality of life. Cities like Vallejo, San Francisco, and Long Beach are getting residents involved through participatory budgeting. In these cities, residents work together to first decide on spending priorities and then devise specific projects based on these priorities. Residents then decide whether to fund them. San José should implement a participatory budgeting program to empower neighborhoods to set spending priorities for their areas of the city. The city council will allocate specific amounts annually of up to $100,000 per district, and councilmembers should ensure district wide participation throughout the process. Spending levels for each district should be equal rather than based on political influence, since some areas are more disadvantaged than others. Although needs may differ, each district's participatory budgeting process should be the same.

”

“

Fiscal Responsibility The City of San José experienced serious budget deficits and increasingly extreme service cuts for 10 years – a result of city council decisions made over the previous few decades. Faced with few options, the city was forced to make difficult cuts to services, including cutting library hours and laying off staff in all departments, as well as cutting salaries for all city employees. 'To keep San José financially sound even during inevitable economic downturns, we need to keep our costs down and resist making promises that will create greater future unfunded liabilities.' To address the structural budget problem, former Mayor Reed proposed reforming the city’s employee pension plans in stages. These pension reforms were overwhelmingly approved by voters. Recently, Mayor Liccardo reached an agreement with the police and fire unions that largely replaces the final reform that voters approved in 2012. The new negotiated agreement preserves the vast majority of savings that the voters previously approved. Most importantly, residents will have the chance to approve the new negotiated agreement in November 2016. After that, any new increases to benefits must also go to the voters for approval. If passed in November, the new pension structure will help keep San José financially sound even during inevitable economic downturns, keep our costs down and prevent greater future unfunded liabilities. '…residents' quality of life cannot be maintained unless the city's financial resources are spent properly.' It goes without saying that residents' quality of life cannot be maintained unless the city's financial resources are spent properly. As the city's finances stabilize, services must be restored in the most cost-effective way. The best way to do this is through the Mayor's zero-based budgeting initiative, which will encourage the city to closely examine its services, eliminate waste, and find efficiencies.

”

See also

2022 Elections

What's on the ballot? U.S. Congress U.S. Congress special elections State executives State legislatures State courts Ballot measures Municipal government School boards Election analysis hub

Government

Who represents me? U.S. Congress State executives State legislators State courts Ballot measures Municipal government School boards

Newsletters

The Heart of the Primaries The Daily Brew The Weekly Brew The Ballot Bulletin Checks and Balances Economy and Society Hall Pass Number of the Day Robe & Gavel Union Station

External links

Search Google News for this topic

Candidate

Mayor of San Jose

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

Personal

Website

Facebook

LinkedIn

Footnotes

Political offices
Preceded by -	San Jose City Council District 6 2017-2024	Succeeded by Michael Mulcahy