Livermore Resident Yesenia Sanchez Declares Victory In Sheriff's Race

LIVERMORE, CA — Livermore resident and current Sheriff’s Commander Yesenia Sanchez declared victory Tuesday over four-term incumbent Gregory Ahern in the race to become Alameda County Sheriff.

Sanchez received 52.69 percent of the vote compared to Ahern’s 31.49 percent, according to the latest tallies as of Wednesday morning. San Francisco police officer JoAnn Walker counts 15.83 percent of the vote.

The final results have not yet been certified by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office, but if current tallies hold and Sanchez stays above 50 percent, she will not need to run against Ahern in November. If Sanchez wins, she will be the first Latina and the first woman to be elected Alameda County Sheriff. Capt. Christina Corpus in San Mateo County also appears poised for victory. They will become the first two Latinas to serve as sheriffs in California history.

“The voters of Alameda County have spoken,” Sanchez told multiple news organizations in a statement Tuesday night. “They yearn for a Sheriff who will bring reform, transparency, and accountability to the Office. I hear these calls loud and clear. As the next Sheriff of Alameda County, I know that I’ve been entrusted with an enormous duty, and I will make our county proud.”

Ahern has not yet commented on the likely upset defeat.

Sanchez has worked for the Sheriff’s Office since 1997 and currently serves as division commander at Dublin’s Santa Rita Jail. A KTVU investigation found that 58 inmates have died at the jail, the highest in-custody death rate of any jail in Northern California. The jail has also been the subject of numerous lawsuits pertaining to the treatment of mentally ill prisoners, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

Sanchez, who has overseen Santa Rita since 2020, made conditions at the jail a centerpiece of her campaign. She claimed that Ahern steered money away from the jail, leaving it short-staffed. Sanchez also campaigned for “cultural change that starts at the top” to prevent more excessive force lawsuits. Another KTVU investigation found that the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office paid $27 million in excessive force lawsuits between 2015 and 2020, the highest of any Bay Area sheriff’s office.

In a year when rising crime has made even San Francisco voters recall a progressive DA, Sanchez pledged a number of progressive reforms, including:

• Enhanced rehabilitation and job training for jail inmates.
• Working with outside agencies to determine how to reduce racial bias in law enforcement.
• Limiting the Sheriff’s Office’s cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
• Increased community engagement, including “work to repair and build trust with marginalized communities.” Sanchez said Ahern has “failed to forge meaningful relationships with an unacceptably large number of elected officials and community leaders in Alameda County.”
• Support for a new county oversight committee to conduct investigations into the Sheriff’s Office.

Sanchez grew up in Hayward, and lives in Livermore with her husband Todd and three stepdaughters.

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