By KENDRA SITTON | Downtown & Uptown News
The election results will not be certified for another month but early leads, some of them insurmountable, paint a picture of who will potentially be representing Uptown and Downtown’s neighborhoods next year.
While this area has been consistently Democrat for years, some of the other areas in San Diego County shifted blue. After eight years of Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer and a much longer Republican majority on the County Board of Supervisors, that office and the board flipped blue thanks to Terra Lawson-Remer defeating incumbent Supervisor Kristin Gaspar. City Council will have a Democrat super-majority.
State Senator Toni Atkins, City Attorney Mara Elliott and Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez all won their re-election bids handily.
While late ballots being counted could boost Council member Barbara Bry’s campaign, Assembly member Todd Gloria had a healthy lead in the mayoral race. However, like in the primary, that could change.
District 3 Council member Chris Ward will replace Gloria in the 78th Assembly District. Then, Democrat Stephen Whitburn, favored to win from the start, was elected to the District 3 seat with a huge portion of the votes. Sean Elo-Rivera had similar returns in District 9 and will replace Council President Georgette Gomez.
Gomez failed in her campaign to fill the House seat vacated by retiring Rep. Susan Davis. Instead, the 53rd seat will be filled by Sara Jacobs, child anti-poverty advocate and granddaughter of Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs.
While these results are not final, they certainly point to San Diego’s continued blue-ward shift. Once a conservative stronghold, now only a few areas around San Diego County have kept Republicans in office.
— Kendra Sitton can be reached at [email protected].