Assembly District 16 recorded a voter turnout rate of 46.9% in the June 2026 California primary — more than 11 percentage points above the closest comparable district and the highest of any assembly district examined in the Bay Area region. What makes the figure unusual is not just its size, but what cannot explain it.
No candidate in AD16 ran an active campaign. The Democratic nominee, the Republican nominee, and the No Party Preference candidate each made no significant voter outreach — no direct mail, no ground operation, no measurable voter contact at scale. The NPP candidate, Chirag Kathrani, received 3.4% of votes counted to date, a share far too small to account for a double-digit district-wide surge.
The anomaly deepens when the district is compared against its closest geographic peers.
The Numbers
Assembly District 14, which spans the same two counties as AD16 — Alameda and Contra Costa — returned 35.9% turnout. The two districts share an identical county composition, meaning the difference in countywide baseline turnout rates cannot explain the gap. Assembly District 24, which carried the same three-party ballot configuration as AD16 (Democratic, Republican, and No Party Preference candidates), returned only 34% turnout.
Assembly District 11, covering parts of Contra Costa and Solano counties, also came in at 35.9%.
Countywide turnout figures add further context. Contra Costa County reported an overall turnout of 44%, Alameda County 38%, Solano County 39.17%, and Santa Clara County 39.91%. Every district examined underperformed its constituent county baselines — except AD16, which exceeded the top end of its county baseline by nearly three percentage points.
What Has Been Ruled Out
Analysis of available district-level data has eliminated the four most common explanations for a primary turnout surge.
Active campaigning. None of the three AD16 candidates conducted a meaningful campaign operation. Turnout surges in primary elections are typically associated with competitive, well-funded races with significant voter outreach. That condition was absent here.
Third-party candidate mobilization. In races where a minor-party candidate drives outsized enthusiasm, the candidate's vote share usually reflects that energy. The AD16 NPP candidate received 3.4% of votes — inconsistent with a district-wide mobilization effect.
Candidate mix. AD24 carried an identical DEM-REP-NPP ballot configuration and returned 34% turnout, nearly 13 points below AD16. The presence of a third-party candidate on the ballot does not appear to explain the result.
County composition. The most rigorous geographic control is AD14, which covers the same Alameda and Contra Costa counties as AD16. Despite identical county composition, AD14 returned 35.9% — 11 points lower. County-level baseline differences are not the explanation.
The County's Response — and a Complication
On June 5, 2026, Chirag Kathrani — the NPP candidate in AD16 — submitted a public records request to the Contra Costa County Elections Division seeking precinct-level results that would allow geographic analysis of where the turnout surge originated.
Assistant Registrar Helen Nolan responded the same day. "Unfortunately, a precinct-level report is not available at this point in time," Nolan wrote, citing the ongoing canvass and noting that precinct-level reporting is "not one of the reports we offer as a data request." Nolan committed to sending a full precinct-by-precinct report once all ballots have been tabulated.
Nolan added that she was reaching out to Alameda County to learn more about that county's publicly available precinct-level mapping tool, which currently displays results for three races.
However, a third-party political data service — tracker.politicaldata.com — is already displaying precinct-level turnout data for the same election, including a precinct-by-precinct map broken down by party affiliation, showing total ballots mailed, ballots returned, and turnout percentages at the precinct level across the region.
This creates a notable asymmetry: commercial political data vendors have access to granular precinct-level information, while the voters who cast those ballots and the candidates on those ballots do not. Under California law, counties are required to report results to the Secretary of State at the precinct level as part of the standard canvass process — meaning the data is collected and transmitted regardless of whether individual counties choose to publish it. The question is not whether the data exists. It does. The question is who it is made available to, and why commercial vendors appear to have access before the public does.
Questions Without Answers
Without precinct-level data, several questions about the AD16 result cannot be resolved:
Is the turnout surge concentrated in specific precincts, or spread uniformly across the district? A concentrated surge suggests a localized driver; a uniform surge suggests something district-wide.
Which voter cohorts account for the increase — new registrants, low-propensity voters returning to the rolls, or existing high-propensity voters turning out at elevated rates?
Why did AD14 — geographically equivalent to AD16 in county composition — fall 11 points below it?
Were there local ballot measures or races appearing in specific AD16 precincts that did not appear in AD14, which may have motivated additional participation?
The Contra Costa County Elections Division has committed to providing precinct-level results following the completion of the canvass. Whether those results will be made available publicly — or only to candidates who formally request them — has not yet been determined.
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