2020 San Diego mayoral election

Last updated

2020 San Diego mayoral election
Flag of San Diego, California.svg
  2016 November 3, 2020 2024  
  AssemblymemberToddGloria.jpg Barbara Bry Interview.png
Candidate Todd Gloria Barbara Bry
Popular vote346,662272,887
Percentage56.0%44.0%

Mayor before election

Kevin Faulconer

Elected Mayor

Todd Gloria

The 2020 San Diego mayoral election was held on November 3, 2020, to elect the Mayor of San Diego. Incumbent Kevin Faulconer was ineligible to run for a third term due to term limits.

Contents

The officially non-partisan primary election was held on March 3, 2020. The top two finishers, California State Assemblymember and former acting mayor Todd Gloria and San Diego City Council president pro tem Barbara Bry advanced to the general election. This guaranteed that a Democrat would be elected mayor of San Diego for only the third time since 1971. [lower-alpha 1] Gloria was then elected mayor in the November 3 election, making him the first Native American and Filipino-American mayor elected in a US city of over a million people, as well as the city's first mayor of color and the city's first openly gay mayor. [1]

Candidates

Note: Municipal elections in California are officially nonpartisan. The parties below identify which party label each candidate would have run under if given the option.

Qualified

Declined

Campaign

The campaign for the mayor's office kicked off in early January 2019, when San Diego City Council president pro tem Barbara Bry and California State Assemblymember Todd Gloria officially announced their candidacies. [18] They were joined in the race later that month by Tasha Williamson, a community activist who works with families who have lost members from police violence. [20] In November 2019, with less than 100 days to go before the primary, city council member Scott Sherman became the first major Republican to file papers for the mayoral race. [6]

One of the issues distinguishing the candidates from each other was housing policy. Local activist attorney Cory Briggs announced in January 2019 that he would run for mayor based on opposition to the loosening of development restrictions proposed by incumbent mayor Kevin Faulconer in his State of the City speech. However, Briggs dropped out of the race by May 2019. [21] In a June 2019 campaign email, Bry came out in favor of strong local control over land use and against statewide legislation to preempt local governments' ability to restrict new development. Gloria favored statewide efforts to increase housing supply, aligning himself with the pro-housing development "Yes In My Back Yard" (YIMBY) movement. [22] Sherman emphasized market-based solutions to housing upon his entry into the race in late 2019. [23]

Another major issue was climate. Gloria emphasized his role in the establishment of the San Diego Climate Action Plan, while Bry called for the plan to be expanded and to have better metrics. [24] [25] Williamson spoke about environmental justice while Sherman attributed pollution to unhoused people. [25]

In August 2019, Gloria was accused of collecting funds for his 2020 re-election campaign to the State Assembly before filing his intent to run with the state in violation of state law. [26] [27] Gloria claimed this was a technical oversight and filed the relevant paperwork the next day. [28] In November 2019, Gloria settled the case with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, paying a $200 fine. [29]

Endorsements

Barbara Bry
Officeholders
Newspapers
Organizations
Individuals
  • Father Joe Carroll [30]
  • Peter Cooper, arts patron and LGBT activist [30]
  • Ann Dynes, environmental advocate [30]
  • Robert Dynes, former Chancellor of the UCSD; former President of the University of California (UC) system [30]
  • Sunday Gover, 2018 candidate for California's 77th State Assembly district [35]
  • Abdur-Rahim Hameed, President and CEO at National Black Contractors Association [30]
  • Marc Johnson, University Heights resident, community leader [30]
  • Geneviéve Jones-Wright, 2018 candidate for San Diego County District Attorney [35]
  • Rita Lim-Wilby, community business owner, social advocate [30]
  • Dr. Alan Mobley, Director of Center for Transformative Justice; Executive Director of SDSU Project Rebound [30]
  • Gentry Patrick, PhD, Professor of Neurobiology and Creator and Faculty Director of the PATHS Scholar Program, UC San Diego [30]
  • Lynn Schenk, former congresswoman [30]
  • Pam Slater-Price, former county supervisor [30]
  • Richard Ybarra, San Diego Community Leader and son-in-law of Cesar Chavez [30]
Todd Gloria
Officeholders
Newspapers
Organizations
Scott Sherman
Officeholders
Organizations

Primary election

The primary election was held on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. In the initial results, Gloria led with more than 40% of the vote and was projected to advance to the general election. Sherman narrowly led Bry by a little over 3,000 votes for the second spot in the general election. [60] By the second day of counting, Bry had reduced Sherman's margin for the second spot by 30 percent to 2,140. [61] Bry continued to gain on Sherman as more votes were counted, and on March 16 her votes surpassed his. [62] The final results released in early April confirmed that Gloria would face Bry in the runoff election. This guaranteed that a Democrat would be elected mayor of San Diego for only the third time since 1971. [63]

Results

2020 San Diego mayoral primary election results [64]
CandidateVotes %
Todd Gloria 147,65441.5%
Barbara Bry 81,54122.9%
Scott Sherman 80,35222.6%
Tasha Williamson25,6297.2%
Gita Appelbaum Singh12,7163.6%
Rich Riel8,0672.3%
Jarvis Gandy (write-in)30.0%
Total votes355,994 100%

General election

Polling

Poll sourceDate(s)
administered
Sample
size [lower-alpha 2]
Margin
of error
Barbara
Bry
Todd
Gloria
OtherUndecided
FM3 Research/Voice of San Diego Oct. 8–22, 2020580 (LV)± 4.1%32%36%32%
SurveyUSA/KGTV-TV/San Diego Union-Tribune Oct. 1–5, 2020547 (LV)± 5.3%38%39%24%
SurveyUSA/KGTV-TV/San Diego Union-Tribune Aug. 28–31, 2020517 (LV)± 5.3%37%34%29%
Strategies 360/Todd Gloria [upper-alpha 1] Jul. 15–19, 2020406 (LV)± 4.9%26%41%33%
GS Strategy Group/San Diego Lincoln Club Archived October 13, 2020, at the Wayback Machine Jun. 22–26, 2020400 (LV)± 4.9%31%34%11% [lower-alpha 3] 24%

Results

Todd Gloria wins 2020 San Diego mayoral election after Barbara Bry concedes.
CandidateVotes %
Todd Gloria 346,66255.95%
Barbara Bry 272,88744.05%
Total votes619,549 100.00%

Notes

  1. Frank Curran's term expired in 1971.
  2. Key:
    A – all adults
    RV – registered voters
    LV – likely voters
    V – unclear
  3. "Neither" with 11%
  1. Poll sponsored by Todd Gloria's campaign

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Official campaign websites