abc7news.com 
Gotta back the blue bruh.
There was no mention of her political officiation in the article, which was written by someone at ABC...I'm guessing she's a lefty.
No doubt. However, ballotopia.org has both her and her last challenger listed as “nonpartisan“- as do pretty much every other site I found. There is also a Laurie Smith that ran for the US congress that was a republican, and there may be some confusion there. I‘d argue that as the assistant Sheriff when the previous sheriff retired, she was heir apparent in her first election. She probably didn’t need to declare a party. And “nonpartisan” could- possibly- be DL Republican in Democrat heavy Santa Clara county. Why declare a party affiliation and alienate the voter base if you do not need to. I think all that we can say with any level of certainty, is that she dleant appear to have declared a party affiliation during her elections. That said, the corruption conviction is crowding out results on google.
Only if you didn't grease her palm.
And there is no chance in hell a conservative sherif would ever get elected there. Sacramento county has a liberal sheriff now replacing the former conservative one. CCW's in that county have increased 10x as people want to get it before it's impossible.
