I have spent a good amount of time in this district, and my impression is that:
- Simitian is the candidate of the boomer NIMBYs who have no actual vision for the future. e.g. in the SF Chronicle's endorsement of Liccardo, the editorial boarded how Simitian gave "few details about what specific policies he would champion."
- Liccardo is the candidate of young and middle-aged center-left normie Dems, tech companies, a small proportion of progressive interest groups, and a few chamber of commerce types who strategically favor Liccardo.
- Low is the definite progressive in the race, posturing towards the median of the House Progressive Caucus, which is as far left as acceptable in Silicon Valley. His support comes mainly from younger folks and most of the progressive interest groups, along with the small amount of labor representation in the area.
There also is the factor of Asian and Hispanic identity groups favoring Low and Liccardo respectively, but I don't know how those dynamics intersect with ideology and the nimby/yimby divides.
This is
broadly correct, though it somewhat overstates how progressive Low actually is. I would describe both Low and Liccardo as somewhat vaguely technocratic types who each embody their own generation's quirks. Both of them have been quite friendly towards tech companies in their careers; outside of tech Liccardo is the more business-friendly of the two. Liccardo is has the most openly pro-housing record of the three; Low has mostly been a party line guy who has largely downplayed the issue while Simitian is very clearly a creature of the residentialist crowd.
In general, Low doesn't talk about any local issues; he's tacked left this campaign to identify with the "soft" part of the CPC and all of his (incredibly obnoxious) advertising talks exclusively about how "Evan Low fought Trump" and then doesn't explain what he's supposed to have done. One could interpret this as trying to thread the needle with both younger progressives and older residents who tend to take more conservative positions on local issues.
Also, it is worth noting, Simitian being a candidate of the Bay Area political old guard does make him a genuinely pretty liberal politician - just one that's extremely disappointing on the set of issues a lot of us really care about.
