Four candidates are challenging incumbent Assemblyman Alex Lee’s re-election bid to represent redrawn District 24, which now includes Milpitas, Fremont, Newark and parts of San Jose

They are former San Jose councilmember Lan Diep, former Assembly member Kansen Chu, Fremont Councilmember Teresa Keng and businessman Bob Brunton. The top two voter getters in Tuesday’s primary will face each other in the November election.

Lee’s current District 25 seat overlaps with much of the new 24th district that was redrawn to reflect population and demographic changes stemming form the latest U.S. Census. The Milpitas Democrat says he’s running for re-election to continue the work he started.

The 26-year-old progressive legislator says affordable housing is a “top top priority” for him and the state needs to bring “all approaches on the table.”

Lee has been working on a social housing bill he considers the “missing tool” in California. Assembly Bill 2053, also called the Social Housing Act, would create a state housing authority to produce affordable housing for people of various incomes.

“I believe that we can do it because if we are building for social good and making all of those profits return back to our community, then we really are hopefully able to get one major step closer to solving the housing crisis,” he said.

Other issues he says are top priorities include instituting universal healthcare in California and removing corporate special interest money from politics. Lee has vowed not to take corporate money during his campaign.

But a large share of the $355,145.82 Lee has raised — the most of all candidates — comes from union political action committees, campaign finance records show.

Meanwhile, a political action committee called Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions has spent  $668,274 to oppose his campaign. It is funded by the California Association of Realtors and the California Apartment Association, which have also spent money to support  Diep, Chu and Keng.

Diep, who was elected to the San Jose City Council in 2016 to represent North San Jose and lost his re-election bid in 2020, said he decided to run for the Assembly to help make the state “better prepared for the future, more affordable and more efficient.”

Before his time as an elected official, the former councilman worked as a fellow for the Legal Aid Society’s Vietnamese American Workers’ Rights Project.

Diep also said housing is one of his top priorities — particularly reforming the California Environmental Quality Act, which he said has become a “hurdle” in building more housing.

“We look at CEQA through a state lens, we see that development needs to happen where there already is density, where people are already living,” he said. “And yes there might be increased noise and increased traffic, but having that increase in the big cities or the Bay Area is more desirable than picking up and going to Bakersfield and starting a new city.”

Diep said he’d also like to see California invest more in its outdated infrastructure, whether that be power grids or waterways, so the state has the “underlying structures to support” its “ambitious goals.”

Chu says he wants to return to the Assembly, where he represented District 25 between 2014 and 2020 before making an unsuccessful bid for the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Before that, he served on the San Jose City Council from 2007 to 2014.

Chu got his start in politics as a school board member for the Berryessa Union School District — a position he currently holds again after being appointed to a vacated seat earlier this year.

“I see that the state is really at the crossroads and that’s why I wanted to go back and to put my years of life experience to work,” he said.

Chu said one of his top priorities is public safety and ensuring police officers have the correct training — especially when it comes to dealing with hate crimes and mental health.

If elected, he also wants to focus on education by lowering the cost to attend public colleges and increasing funding for daycare services.

He has raised the second highest campaign amount as of late May — $193,495.86.

Keng, who has been serving on the Fremont City Council since 2018, said she felt the effects of the pandemic deeply as a small business owner and the mother of two children with autism.

One of her top priorities is to continue supporting small businesses impacted by COVID-19.

“In our district we actually have more than 50% Asian American residents and many of them are first generation immigrants, many of them English is not their first language, so we need to make sure that we have these government grants and support that are in their native language that are easy to access,” she said.

Keng also wants to ensure there is more access to four-year colleges for local students by establishing a new University of California in Silicon Valley.

Brunton, as the only Republican in the race, said he is trying to “rebuild and remake this area the way I saw it when I first came here.”

The self-described “common-sense Republican” made it to the runoff in 2020 against Lee for his current Assembly District 25 seat. He also served on the Ohlone College’s board of trustees for 12 years and is a business owner.