The results for the “jungle primary” elections for Silicon Valley’s Congressional district 17 are in. It is going to be a battle between incumbent Rep. Mike Honda and Ro Khanna for the November elections. According to the Silicon Valley Congressional Elections in CA 17″ href=”http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/06/03/live-updates-california-congressional-race-seventeen/”>results Rep. Honda won 48.6% and Ro Khanna got 27.1%. Trailing not too far behind Khanna is Vanilla Singh (R), who got 16.9 %.

The campaign for this Congressional district started very early, in fact right after Rep. Honda got elected last year. President Obama endorsed Rep. Honda (73), while quite a few of  of Silicon Valley tech companies backed Khanna (37), who announced that he was running for elections in April 2013. Up until early this year it looked  like the “jungle primary” race was going to be  between Rep. Honda and Khanna, both of whom we interviewed on our TV show. But, then things changed when two new candidates joined the fray.

Early this year two new Republican candidates threw in their hat into the race. They were: Vanilla Singh, a Stanford physician and Joel Vanlandingham. Unexpected is how many political analysts and pandits described when the two new candidates entered the elections and changed the tone and tempo of the race in Silicon Valley. Some described the race as bitter, while others described it as ugly. All of a sudden, it went from being a race between the incumbent and a young challenger to one with the incumbent facing 3 challengers.

Rep. Honda is a 7 term Congress Representative. Khanna is running for elections for the first time. He previously served in Obama’s administration. Rep. Honda is a former school teacher, who started his political career at a local level in Silicon Valley before going to Sacramento and Washington DC. Khanna is a lawyer, who served in Obama’s administration and is contesting elections for the first time.

We now have  two Democrats facing off each other the the November elections and the question is who will represent Silicon Valley? Will it be Honda or Khanna? While the voter turnout for the primary elections was quite low, I suspect the turnout will be pretty high in the November elections. This is going to be a fiercely fought elections and the battle for the seat has just begun.