East Palo Alto Mayor Antonio Lopez’s Prius doubles as his campaign headquarters.
The GPS interrupted Mexican singer Peso Pluma singing through the speakers, announcing turns through Redwood City neighborhoods for a last canvassing push on the Sunday before the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors election on Nov. 5, a race that is pitting Lopez against Councilmember Lisa Gauthier.
A pine air freshener dangled from the mirror behind a string of chunky black beads swaying over business cards and photo strips of him and his girlfriend strewn across the front console. A case of Gatorade and empty protein shakes litter the backseat. Mounds of orange door hangers featuring his portrait and his platform goals rest in a cardboard box for easy access while hopping in and out of the car.
The last Sunday before the election brings Lopez to Redwood City as he battles to connect with remaining voters.
Lopez hums to himself while hiking up and down driveways through houses, tracking the houses that have yet to vote on an app that documents how often someone has voted and whether their ballot has yet been received.
“Hello, good morning, sir. My name is Antonio Lopez and I am running for local office. Is Daniel here?”
“No hablo Inglés.”
“Oh, you speak Spanish? Buenos días, señor. Mi nombre es Antonio.”
It took him only two months to perfect his spiel while canvassing. On a good day he can hit anywhere between 200 and 400 houses. It depends how the neighborhood is laid out, how talkative people are and whether there are many “No Solicitor” signs.
In the remaining days, he and his team are pushing out text blasts, ramping up the television ads and speaking to as many people as possible to gain votes. They also sent out thousands of mailers detailing Lopez’s platform.
Lopez is running against East Palo Alto City Councilmember Gauthier. Gauthier has worked on the council for 12 years and has been appointed mayor and vice mayor three times.
Lopez never pictured himself in politics until his second Masters program at Oxford University was shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2020. He returned home to East Palo Alto, where his parents were in the middle of a divorce.
Amid that turmoil, there was just so much uncertainty, he said. He heard there were three open seats on the EPA city council and he knew that would be his next challenge.
As mayor, Lopez represents around 30,000 residents with a city budget around $64 million. The Board of Supervisors is responsible for San Mateo County which has over 760,000 residents and a budget of around $4.3 billion. The Board has not elected an official from East Palo Alto since Rose Jacobs Gibson retired in 2013.
As mayor, Lopez addressed homelessness in East Palo Alto by offering shelter and mental health services instead of criminalizing homelessness. He also helped establish the East Palo Alto Coalition Against Human Trafficking which raises sex trafficking awareness.
Even as the youngest mayor in East Palo Alto history at 30-years-old, Lopez identifies as a writer. With an MFA in poetry from Rutgers University and, now studying for his PHD in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University, poetry helped refine his communication and empathy necessary for success in office.
“Politics is a lot about slogans and perceptions – smoke and mirrors,” he said. “Poetry is about honesty and authenticity.”
Because of his literary training, he reframes constituents’ main concerns to ask, “What’s the story that hasn’t been told?”
Elected officials do not proportionally reflect the Hispanic population in the county, Lopez said. Around 24% of San Mateo County is Hispanic, according to Data USA. Therefore, Spanish outlets contact Lopez for interviews even if the story is not relevant to his district. Elected officials need to speak the language and understand the culture and there are no other elected officials able to comment, he said.
Lopez is the first of his family to go to college. He attended Menlo School, a college prep school in Atherton. His college counselor, Mark Clevenger, helped lay the groundwork for Lopez’s candidacy. Clevenger covered Lopez’s college application fees and the flight cost from California to North Carolina when he started his Bachelors at Duke University.
“Coming from EPA and being Latino, there’s a sense of insecurity and imposter syndrome,” Lopez said. “That’s why education has been so important to me because it has allowed me to empower myself.”
He relocated from canvassing in neighborhoods to pop by two Spanish masses in San Mateo, St. Pius and St. Anthony, to hand out some more literature to voters.
At St. Anthony’s, Lopez’s mother spotted him in the crowd. Attendees approached him after recognizing him for his television ads.
“Antonio! What’s up, brother? I just voted for you – you and Trump,” said a man with a dark ponytail and a black polo. He exited the church carrying his daughter with the rest of his family following behind. They shook hands and the voter pulled Lopez in for a hug.
Lopez finds one of the wildest trends to be voters who choose him and Trump on the same ballot. Alternatively, when he was out canvassing, a family asked him whether his red and blue tie meant he was Republican.
To run for Board of Supervisors, candidates are not politically affiliated on the ballot, but Lopez, who identifies as a Democrat, does find that the public’s anxiety around the presidential election is shaping local elections like his.
At the church, the parking lot emptied out as he spoke with a family about a school that lost funding and was shut down. Although the Board of Supervisors is not responsible for education changes, he plans to work with the school board on education policies that will make opportunities more accessible.
However, his main focus is economic development that prioritizes workforce housing that helps public servants, especially teachers and first responders, afford to live in San Mateo County.
“People look at me like I’m a success story – I don’t really look at myself like that,” he said. “I can be a stepping stone for other people.”
