How San Diego County voted – so far

There were not many surprises in the San Diego County March 3 presidential primary elections.

The biggest upset was in the 3rd Supervisorial District. UCSD professor and former Obama senior advisor, Terra Lawson-Remer, upset populist Escondido councilwoman Olga Diaz. Diaz, the first Latina to serve on the city council, had the support of most of the Democrat clubs in the district, and first responder and law enforcement labor unions. Lawson-Remer will go one to challenge incumbent Kristin Gaspar in the November runoff.

Former radio talk show host Carl DeMaio failed his third attempt to re-enter political office. Former eight-term Congressman Darrell Issa joined the 50th Congressional District race and split the conservative vote. Issa goes on to challenge Ammar Campa-Najjar in November. The trio spent $10 million in the embattled campaign, one of the costliest in the country.

While county registrar of voters Michael Vu issued results in a timely manner over election night, there are still 210,000 provisional ballots to be hand-counted.

One week after the polls closed, there are four, too-close-to-call races for the second-spot challenger to run against the primary front-runner in November.

In the first county supervisorial district, Rafa Castellanos and Nora Vargas are flip-flopping with 153 votes between the two. In the San Diego city council district 1 contest, newcomers Will Moore and Aaron Brennan await the tally with a 571-vote difference. In council district 3, Toni Duran and Chris Olsen have 726 votes separating them.

While Todd Gloria has commanding voter support as the next mayor of San Diego – 42 percent, councilpersons Barbara Bry and Scott Sherman can’t start their challenge campaigns, as only 1,701votes separate them for the second spot.

School district and city tax increases didn’t fly with county voters. Lemon Grove decisively turned down a ¾-cent sales tax increase. School districts in Cajon Valley, Chula Vista, Escondido, and Poway failed to pass tax increase bond measures, as did the state’s voters with school bond Proposition 13.

However San Ysidro voters supported school bond measures U and T, which will raise over $108 million for their eight-school district. Based on the average San Ysidro home sales price, the two bonds will add $289 a year a new homeowner’s property tax.

Big developers failed at the ballot box. Measure B – the Newland Sierra housing development along the undeveloped I-15 corridor north of Escondido, and Measure G – a 16-acre bluff-top resort planned in Del Mar, were turned down by voters.

Insiders say the early voting and mail ballots have changed the way campaigns are run. Voters may have noticed a large decrease in candidate postcards arriving in their mailboxes the week prior to the election. Campaign strategists knew that one-third of the county voters had already cast their mail ballot.

One of the drawbacks of early mail voting is 83,286 votes in the county were wasted on three presidential candidates that had dropped out of the race the week before Election Day.