WINNERS
Gas Tax Repeal Campaign: The Recall against State Senator Josh Newman (the deciding vote for the car and gas tax hikes) was a stunning success with a nearly 60% YES on Recall vote. The Democrats have now lost their Super-Majority in Sacramento. More importantly, candidates who made the Gas Tax Repeal the center-piece of their campaigns won their races – such as John Cox for Governor, Diane Harkey for US Congress, and Tyler Diep for State Assembly. Read my full statement on the developments.
Gavin Newsom – Gavin Newsom got what he thinks he wanted: A D vs R Runoff in the Governor’s Race. Newsom, who has been running for Governor for over a decade, may have had a solid base of Democrats but he was by far the weakest of the Democrats for the Runoff. Still, in a deep blue state, Newsom starts as the favorite, but don’t count out John Cox just yet.
Party Endorsements – The election results showed once again that a candidate winning the endorsement of county party really the matters. In the 49th Congressional race, Diane Harkey went from single digits in the polls to a commanding lead once she captured the local Republican Party endorsement – and the Party endorsement allowed Omar Qudrat and Morgan Murtaugh to edge out their rivals.
Same is true on the Democratic side. Nathan Fletcher has significant baggage with a far right-wing voting record, a history of not showing up to work, and disgraceful treatment of his ex-wife – but the county Democratic Party bowed to powerful interests backing Fletcher in giving him their stamp of approval over true-blue progressives Lori Saldana and Omar Passons. His Supervisorial Primary was largely over when he won the Democratic Party endorsement.
Message to other candidates: Don’t piss off your county Party and start paying more attention to the grassroots than the monied interests downtown.
Summer Stephan: The appointed District Attorney comfortably won the office in her own right – despite $1.5 million in nasty campaign ads funded by billionaire George Soros.
LOSERS
Travis Allen – Travis Allen was a huge loser in the June Primary. On paper, Travis Allen looked like a good candidate – but then he decided to scam supporters into thinking he was working on a Gas Tax Repeal Initiative. Travis Allen had no intention of qualifying a Gas Tax Repeal Initiative. Allen was just looking to grandstand and scam unwitting donors out of contributions so he could support his race for Governor. It backfired – big time.
Rocky Chavez and Kristin Gaspar – Assemblyman Rocky Chavez went to Sacramento as a Republican, but quickly developed Stockholm Syndrome and voted with the Democrats on a myriad of issues, including costly mandates to raise the cost of living on Californians. Some of California’s Establishment Republicans had been touting Chavez as a “model” to emulate and set up a “New Way” GOP Group to promote more Republican candidates to move Left. With his resounding loss, hopefully their concept of “New Way” will become a “No Way” idea.
In that same Congressional race, San Diego County Supervisor Kristin Gaspar also had an embarrassing night. Once seen as a rising star, Gaspar was pushed by her commission-seeking political consultant Jason Roe to get into a race she couldn’t win from the beginning. Gaspar angered her supporters who saw her as an opportunist jumping from the office she had just won just a year ago. With her weak performance, Democrats taste blood in the water and will redouble their efforts to target her in 2020. Bad move by Kristin – time for a new consultant.
George Soros: The liberal billionaire spent $1.5 million trying to buy the District Attorney’s office. San Diego voters wisely decided the DA’s office shouldn’t be owned by a billionaire who hates cops and wants to let criminals off easy with “restorative counseling programs” instead of jail time.
Myrtle Cole: The San Diego City Council President posted an embarrassing paltry 39% against political newbie Monica Montgomery’s 37%. Both will now advance to the runoff, but blood is in the water and the results show Cole has neglected her district.
San Diego Media: The liberal media in San Diego showed it is not interested in balanced journalism but instead wants to be political advocates for left-wing candidates. Take the George Soros stunt. If a Republican billionaire single-handedly put $1.5 million into backing a no-name candidate for District Attorney, the media would have screamed bloody murder! With Soros, they stayed quiet. Why? At least two left-wing media outlets – Voice of San Diego and KPBS – are tied to Soros funding. The media also let Nathan Fletcher off completely on his dramatic and unprincipled flip-flop on every major issue – and then clutched their pearls in outrage when outside groups took Fletcher to task for having no genuine beliefs. Two media outlets (Coast News and 10 News) ran with an unsubstantiated sexual harassment smear against Assembly candidate Phil Graham. It took the Sheriff’s office just days to come out and unequivocally disprove the allegations – but the damage was done. Graham’s opponents took the initial flawed media reports and destroyed him. The result was Republicans were shut out of the 76th Assembly District runoff – thus handing the Republican seat to Democrats.
As with the national media, San Diego’s local media will continue to die a slow death as readers/viewers tune them out when they discover the grotesque level of bias.