Look familiar? We pulled this post from the Morning Report. Our daily newsletter is the best way to stay up to date on San Diego election results. Subscribe here.
Republicans across the country went to bed Tuesday very pleased. Donald Trump is now just the second person to be elected president twice in non-consecutive elections. The U.S. Senate flipped to Republican control but control of the U.S. House was still too close to call.
It’s so close, a House race in North County may be the one to decide it. U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, a Democrat, held a small lead over his Republican challenger Matt Gunderson early Wednesday.
However much joy Republicans are experiencing, Trump’s success nationally may mean four more years, at least, of Republican struggles in San Diego County. In the biggest race in the region, County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer appears to have decisively beat her challenger, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican. And with that, an experienced, well-known Republican candidate with a major funding advantage lost to a Democrat in large part because of his support of Trump.
Locally, Mayor Todd Gloria and other Democrats did well, but tax measures they supported are still up in the air. A Democrat, Darshana Patel, appears to have kept the 76th Assembly seat in Democratic hands with a 5-point lead over Republican Kristie Bruce-Lane.
However, one Republican is about to be back, in a big way: Carl DeMaio. He handily disposed of rival Republican Andrew Hayes in the 75th Assembly District, whose support from elected Republicans, the Republican Party, Democrats, labor, police, fire fighters and so many others was not enough to beat DeMaio’s connections and supporters.
What happened: In our discussions with voters for our traditional Voices of the Voters features, one topic came up again and again: the cost of living and how painful it was. Across the country, that seems to be the major driver of the antipathy to the Biden-Harris administration that led to Trump’s victory.
Read the Voices of the Voters stories here.
And here, the 11 sales tax measures across the county – where voters had to decide whether to deliberately increase their cost of living – served as referendums on the agencies that would collect the taxes.
Some got major messages of support from their constituents. Others very much did not. We don’t know exactly how several went. We’ll have to wait days for the county to finish counting the votes.
County Likely Remains Under Dem Control
County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s definitive early lead Tuesday night suggests Democrats will retain control of the County Board of Supervisors.
At 1 a.m. Wednesday, Lawson-Remer was ahead of challenger and former Republican mayor Kevin Faulconer by more than 24,000 votes in District 3, which spans most of the county’s coastal communities.
Our Lisa Halverstadt reviewed what a Lawson-Remer’s likely victory means for the county.
One hint: Lawson-Remer is going to try to become chair of the Board of Supervisors. Current Chair Nora Vargas may not be into that.
Four More Years for Gloria
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria appears to have won re-election. As of the count at 1 a.m., he held a 10-point lead over challenger Larry Turner — a difference of more than 34,000 votes out of 346,590 counted.
It was certainly a relief for Gloria, known to sweat any bad news, and he’ll take it as a validation of his efforts on the city’s homelessness, cost-of-living and infrastructure crises.
Turner, a San Diego police officer, had only recently moved to the city but mounted a furious campaign to highlight the city’s ills and decline under Gloria. He tapped into neighbors’ angst about development in their neighborhood but most intensely focused on the suffering of homeless residents in the streets.
To oust an incumbent, though, you must prove to voters you deserve the job, which means they have to learn about you. That takes either significant celebrity or money or both. A last-minute infusion of nearly $1.7 million from a donor in Point Loma turned out to be too little, too late.
San Diego City Council Incumbents Hold; Ferbert Rolls
Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, who leads the Council’s progressive wing, will likely defeat his challenger Terry Hoskins, a retired police officer. As of 1:00 a.m., Elo-Rivera had 58 percent of the vote.
Councilmember Stephen Whitburn also appeared to cruise to re-election. He had 61 percent of the vote in a race against Coleen Cusack, a progressive attorney, who was an advocate against the city’s homeless encampment ban.
City Attorney: Turns out experience matters – or at least experience that gets you a good ballot title does. Heather Ferbert, a chief deputy city attorney, sailed past Assembly member Brian Maienschein in the race for San Diego City Attorney. Ferbert led Maienschein by around 12 points early Wednesday morning. Though the race divided councilmembers, Maienschein had the support of most labor unions, the mayor and the county’s Democratic party.
Some Cities Convinced Voters to Pay More Taxes
Several cities appear to have passed tax increases, but San Diego’s sales tax increase, Measure E, remains too close to call. As of 1 a.m., the county had “yes” at 49 percent of the vote – just more than 7,900 votes back out of more than 346,000 counted so far. With each count update, the yes side gained ground. All of San Diego’s City Councilmembers supported the proposed tax increase.
So far, it appears San Diegans are rejecting a countywide measure to raise the sales tax by half a cent to pay for transportation projects.
But as of 1 a.m., the vote was too close to call with 52 percent of voters casting ballots against Measure G, and 48 percent in favor – a difference of 37,388 out of nearly 900,000 votes counted.
It’s likely that the cities of Chula Vista, El Cajon, Oceanside and La Mesa convinced voters to extend existing sales tax increases in their cities. Sales tax increase proposals in at least two other cities are also leaning toward passing: Lemon Grove and San Marcos.
Escondido: Voters have passed a 1-percentage point increase to the sales tax rate in Escondido. The “yes” votes accounted for more than 58 percent of the votes counted as of 1 a.m. in Escondido.
Incumbents Trail in Encinitas and Oceanside Mayoral Races
Mayoral races in Encinitas and Oceanside were extremely close on Tuesday night with early results showing each race in a dead heat. At stake are competing visions for the future of housing development in both cities.
Encinitas: In Encinitas, incumbent Mayor Tony Kranz is facing City Councilmember Bruce Ehlers for the mayoral seat. Early results showed Ehlers leading Kranz by four points. Read more about that race here.
Oceanside: Incumbent Democratic Mayor Esther Sanchez is running against challenger Republican Ryan Keim, a councilmember and current deputy mayor.
The two have often been at odds, especially when it comes to housing.
Sanchez has advocated for more affordable housing projects, but she’s often the only councilmember opposed to big development projects, echoing residents’ concerns about increased traffic or changing community character.
Keim, on the other hand, has a more pro-growth stance and has acknowledged that state law requires him and the council to approve most housing projects.
Early results showed Keim leading by one point, but it’s still too close to call.
Carl DeMaio Leading in 75th Assembly Race
In the 75th Assembly District race, Republican Carl DeMaio has taken an early and wide lead over his opponent Republican Andrew Hayes.
DeMaio, a former San Diego city councilmember, is a controversial conservative figure in San Diego politics. His campaign was riddled with controversy and complaints of campaign finance violations.
He previously served one term on the San Diego City Council in 2008, then lost races for mayor in 2012 and for Congress in 2014 and 2020. He promised to reshape the entire California Republican Party.
San Diego Unified Board Incumbent Maintains Razor Thin Lead
The race between San Diego Unified incumbent Sabrina Bazzo and challenger Crystal Trull is razor tight. As of 1:00 a.m., the count showed Bazzo up by just 691 votes out of nearly 47,000 votes cast – 50.74 percent to Trull’s 49.26 percent. That could flip over coming days and would disrupt the San Diego Unified Board of Education where there is little dissent.
Trull faced significant headwinds: The district’s teachers union, who has long acted as a kingmaker in board races, supported Bazzo. Though she ran a relatively apolitical campaign, Trull was endorsed by the county’s Republican Party. That’s a hard sell for a district electorate that has voted in exclusively liberal, labor-supported candidates for multiple election cycles.
Despite all of that, voters seem open to a new face who can help clean up its old problems, party affiliation be damned.
Statewide: A Hit and a Miss
Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime ballot measure, passed easily Tuesday night. The proposition will roll back reforms made by Californians a decade earlier.
Recent waves of “smash and grab robberies” and fentanyl deaths led some business and law enforcement groups to revisit the earlier reforms. Proposition 36 toughens penalties for fentanyl trafficking and introduces court-ordered treatment for people convicted of drug offenses.
Affordable housing, roads and stormwater improvements might have to wait, after a ballot measure that would have made it easier to fund those investments is falling behind in early election returns. Proposition 5 aimed to lower the threshold for passing local infrastructure bonds from two-thirds to 55 percent.
Will Huntsberry, Lisa Halverstadt, Andrea Lopez-Villafaña, Tigist Layne, Jim Hinch, MacKenzie Elmer, Jakob McWhinney, Deborah Brennan Bella Ross and Scott Lewis contributed to this post.
Why Robert Kennedy Jr. is correct in advocating to “Make America Healthy Again”
American society has brainwashed our citizens in believing in horribly unhealthy habits. We have come to accept these habits as normal, just as we accept old people to look and act old. To quote POGO, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
We are a culture of mostly young people flocking to gyms in search of the perfect body while vying for parking spaces closet to the door. With few exceptions, few of our citizens over 70 works out strenuously and religiously on a daily basis. It’s called flash in the pan health, lasting a few years until the grit is gone. But all this hypocrisy is the tip of the iceberg considering what our society has inflicted upon America.
Several months ago, I tuned in to a major sporting event on network television only to be inundated with tons of commercials for drugs of every kind. Robert Kennedy Jr. understands the truth, the fallacy and the insanity of big pharmaceutical companies profiting off the backs and health of our fellow Americans. Many of these drugs have dangerous side effects and are unnecessary. The doctors who prescribe these medications make a profit. This must end.
America’s food supply is contaminated with Federal food and drug administration approved sickening ingredients. Does anyone read what’s in a bottle of soda? A bag of potato chips? Are municipal water supplies safe? We ought to demand health education in every high school in the United States in order to graduate. We must hold the media and FDA accountable. According to the renowned Mayo Clinic, American life expectancy has fallen in part to the consumption of processed foods. We are five years behind countries like Spain and Switzerland. This must end.
All fifty states mandate a vaccination for polio which is normal and most other childhood vaccinations are indeed prudent except Americans must be vigilant in terms of too many vaccines which may be unneeded. The subject of the COVID vaccine has been highly controversial. In order to understand where I stand on this vaccine, consider the following: When the pandemic first broke out, I was running in an event in France. Upon my return to the United States at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, I was bewildered at all the masks worn by Asian flight attendants. Later in San Diego, I was admonished for not wearing a mask. My insurance company insisted that I get a vaccination. I never got vaccinated, instead I drove to Flagstaff, Arizona to climb mountains and drove back again to climb more mountains. I only wore a mask when required and mingled with large groups of people. I never got sick. In fact, I became stronger during the pandemic at age 70. I ran in the bitter cold of Coalville, Utah, Jacumba Hot Springs, California and the stifling 117-degree heat of Borrego Springs, California as well as Desert Hot Springs all without a mask and no vaccination.
It was no coincidence that in 1961, America’s fittest President John Kennedy, and uncle to Robert Kennedy Jr. launched a physical education program for the youth of America. It was a resounding success. President Kennedy recognized the ill health of our nation and the concomitant effects upon our military. We ought to revive this program. That same year, my athletic mother from France would exercise with Jack Lalanne on black and white television. My mother and President Kennedy were the blueprint for my life.
In conclusion, a sobering fact. For 10,000 years, history proves that only a handful of people adhere to a devoted life of fitness, nutrition and healthy habits through old age. This is a fact. This is an undisputable fact. Most people give up, lose their sense of purpose and grit. Just look at the reality. How many men compete in my age group? With the advent of ebikes, scooters and increasing technology, we are headed in the wrong direction. I can only pray for America.
Daniel Smiechowski is an age group champion in running, a former Ironman triathlete and long-distance swimmer on three continents.