2-minute voter guide: San Diego County Supervisor District 3
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Photo illustration: Axios Visuals. Photos: Courtesy of the County of San Diego and Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer is seeking re-election against one of the region's most high-profile politicians: former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
Why it matters: The race will determine partisan control of the five-member San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
State of play: In 2018, Republicans had a 5-0 advantage on the board, but Lawson-Remer's 2020 win in the swing District 3 seat — along with Nora Vargas' win in District 1 — gave Democrats a 3-2 majority.
- Faulconer termed out of the mayor's office in 2020 and lost a gubernatorial run in 2021 when Gov. Gavin Newsom defeated a recall attempt.
Zoom in: Faulconer has made his case for the seat touting that homelessness fell in the city while he was mayor.
- The fine print: San Diego did have fewer homeless people in 2020 when Faulconer left office than when he took office in 2014, but that was after it peaked in 2017 and led to a Hepatitis A outbreak that killed 20 people.
Lawson-Remer has targeted Faulconer over his acquisition of the downtown high rise 101 Ash Street, which became a City Hall-dominating scandal in his administration.
- Faulconer in 2016 arranged the $18,000-per day lease of the building, which sat empty for years after the city overlooked its poor condition, and which city workers occupied for a few weeks before it was evacuated due to asbestos.
Faulconer's campaign has attacked Lawson-Remer as an absentee official, including an accusation that she has never attended a meeting of a regional homelessness group she vice chairs, which Voice of San Diego determined was accurate.
- Lawson-Remer has advertised Faulconer's oval office photo with former President Trump often, a tactic that proved effective in ousting a Republican council member in an overlapping district in 2018.
By the numbers: Democrats outnumber Republicans 162,000 to 109,000 in the district — which stretches from Coronado to Carlsbad along the coast and juts inland to cover Rancho Santa Fe, Mira Mesa and Rancho Penasquitos — and there are 101,000 independent voters.
- Republican Kristin Gaspar held the seat before Lawson-Remer and Democrat Dave Roberts represented it before her.