A new report from Edgewater Strategies, a San Diego-based political consulting firm, took a look at voting trends and patterns from the 2022 midterm election cycle. The report found that in San Diego, Democrats were voting early and Republicans were voting in huge numbers on Election Day. Also, late returns were overwhelmingly Democrat.
Mason Herron, who compiled the report, said that’s even given us some interesting analysis of who voters viewed as more conservative in races where two Democrats were facing off.
“I think District 6 in San Diego City Council was Kent Lee versus Tommy Hough. You know Kent had been seen by political observers as the more conservative, more moderate candidate, at least that’s how he presented himself, and sure enough, if you look at those Election Day returns, which I said were disproportionally Republican, he did disproportionally well among that group,” Herron said.
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Another trend the report found was Republicans overperformed in local, non-partisan races in comparison to candidates for the bigger races like governor and U.S. Senate. Herron said John McCann’s victory in the Chula Vista mayor’s race is an example of that.
“I assume kind of the issue that the local candidates were talking about for the most part seemed to probably resonate with local voters a bit more, especially without having the presence of Trump in the White House, it allowed them to refocus things on what’s happening locally,” Herron said.
San Diego Midterm Election Stories
The report also found that the San Diego County Democratic Party spent approximately $1 million on local candidates while the San Diego County Republican Party spent a third of that. The democrats spent almost $200,000 on Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democratic candidate in the Chula Vista mayor’s race, and $100,000 each on Jen Campbell, the incumbent candidate in San Diego City Council District 2, and Nathan Fletcher, the incumbent candidate in the race for District 4 County Supervisor.
Out of 18 City Councils in San Diego County, the report says nine now have Democratic majorities, seven have Republican majorities and two have vacancies, so the majority is undetermined right now.
To read the full report click here: 2022 Election Analysis.docx (squarespace.com)
