7 things we learned about San Diego from Tuesday's election
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Daniel Knighton/Getty Images
The presidential results are dominating attention spans across the country today, but San Diego voters told us where they stand on the biggest issues facing the city.
Driving the news: Here are seven observations of what voters' choices told us.
- The fine print: The registrar's office estimates it has 590,000 more votes to count over the next nine days, which could swing close races or narrow margins.
🥴 City residents may be fed up with San Diego's direction, as pre-election polls suggested, but they apparently weren't ready for any leadership changes.
- Every city incumbent — Mayor Todd Gloria, Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and Council member Stephen Whitburn — appears to have won, and a deputy to the current city attorney won the open seat to replace her.
- Yes, but: Gloria's opponent, Larry Turner, is not ready to concede, issuing a statement Wednesday saying he's optimistic late votes will close the gap.
✅ Speaking of which, the city attorney's race once again demonstrated titles matter. First-time candidate Heather Ferbert, on the ballot as a "deputy city attorney," leads with 56.3% of the vote against Brian Maienschein, a six-term Assembly member and former councilman.
- Her boss, City Attorney Mara Elliott, defeated a field of better-funded opponents for the job in 2016, also while listed on the ballot as "deputy city attorney."
🛑 The national mood on President-elect Trump shifted heavily from four years ago, but local Democrats are still winning races by tying Republican opponents to him.
- Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican, currently has 44.3% support in his bid for the county's District 3 seat, worse than independent first-time candidate Larry Turner in his mayoral race.
- County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer plastered the districts with billboards of Faulconer in the Oval Office with Trump.
⏪ California voters are thinking very differently about crime and criminal justice than they were a decade ago: In 2014, 59% of voters approved Proposition 47, lowering some drug and theft crimes to misdemeanors.
- So far, 70% of voters supported Proposition 36, walking back those changes.
🏘️ Encinitas is not ready to give up its fight with the state requirements pushing the city to build more housing.
- Bruce Ehlers, who authored the 2013 measure that instigated that yearslong fight, is leading incumbent Mayor Tony Kranz with 52.3% of the vote so far. Kranz had reluctantly concluded that fighting the state was useless.
💰 The Municipal Employees Association, the city's union for white-collar workers, finds itself in a familiar position after championing a major ballot initiative to increase city revenues.
- In 2022, they put up Measure B to allow the city to charge for trash collection at most single-family homes, which trailed early before eventually prevailing.
- This year, the union-backed Measure E, a one-cent sales tax for city services, is narrowly behind, but supporters are confident they will prevail in the days ahead.
💲 Measure E currently has better than 57% support in each council district in the city's urban core — Districts 3, 4, 8 and 9, as local election analyst Mason Herron pointed out.
- The measure is below 50% approval in the city's coastal and suburban areas, Districts 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7.