So you're telling me there's a chance: GOP again eyes county board of supes
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
In last year's District 3 supervisor race, Republicans saw their last, best chance to retake a majority on the county board of supervisors. Five months later, their last, best chance may be here again.
Why it matters: The special election for the county's District 1 seat will determine partisan control of a board that controls an $8.5 billion budget — and had a 5-0 GOP majority as recently as 2018.
Driving the news: Republican Chula Vista Mayor John McCann and Democratic Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre are heading to a July runoff after taking 42% and 32% of the vote, respectively, in this month's primary.
- While McCann finished first, he was also the only high-profile Republican in a seven-candidate field, and the top Democrats combined for 53%, enough to secure victory for Aguirre if she can maintain those votes.
State of play: Mason Herron, a political consultant with Edgewater Strategies who works on Republican campaigns, said McCann's bid looks more like a high-risk, high-reward play in a blue district than a competitive race with a solid chance of victory.
- That's in part based on the results of last year's District 3 race.
Flashback: Former Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer tried to unseat Democratic Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer in District 3, a coastal district with the county's narrowest Democratic registration advantage.
- Faulconer was optimistically seen as "the type of Republican who could win those voters," Herron said — an environmentally friendly moderate who marched in the Pride parade.
- More money poured in for Faulconer, but Lawson-Remer won by 13 points, emphasizing Faulconer's ties to President Trump by bombarding voters with a photo of him in the Oval Office.
Between the lines: The GOP didn't have long to dwell. Former Democratic Supervisor Nora Vargas resigned in December, before her second term started.
By the numbers: On paper, the South Bay, District 1 seat doesn't look like a pickup opportunity.
- Vargas won her second term last year by nearly 25 points.
- Democrats have an 80,000-person registration edge, and the district's population is 60% Hispanic and 18% white, according to SANDAG's latest estimate.
The intrigue: But the low-turnout environment created by a mid-summer special election — with no other races on the ballot — is making GOP donors and Republican-aligned groups wonder whether there's a chance.
- Republicans make up 22% of District 1's registered voters, but they returned 31% of the ballots in the April special election.
- McCann has done it before. In 2022, he became mayor of Chula Vista, despite Republicans representing just 24% of city registered voters.
The bottom line: Herron said Trump will be a bigger deal this time around than he was in McCann's mayoral race, because Trump was out of office and out of mind then.
- McCann also needs to chart a path to a majority, after taking just 42% in the primary, when Democrats were busy attacking each other and leaving him alone.
- "It's hard for me to see a path," Herron said. "He'll need the stars to align."