For all the money and effort thrown into the District 4 Board of Supervisors race, it wasn’t a close contest in the end. Democrat Nathan Fletcher won the central San Diego seat in a landslide with 66 percent of the vote to Republican Bonnie Dumanis’ 34 percent.
Why this matters
inewsource’s precinct maps help voters see how candidates and ballot measures did in each neighborhood.
Republican Supervisor Ron Roberts held the seat for 24 years but was termed out. That gave Democrats hope for a victory in a district that now has two registered Democrats for every Republican.
The results are not too surprising given the primary election, when four Democratic candidates captured 74 percent of the vote, leaving Dumanis — the sole Republican — with 26 percent. But the results are a significant win for the Democrats: Fletcher is the only Democrat on the five-member board, and the second Democrat on the board since the 1990s.
inewsource produced a map of the 4th District results, breaking down each precinct and how the candidates performed. Fletcher, a former state assemblyman, won almost every precinct in the district, performing strongest in North Park, Mission Bay and Ocean Beach. He won by smaller margins in Kearny Mesa and Clairemont. Dumanis, elected four times in the county as district attorney, won precincts in parts of La Jolla and Point Loma.
The race attracted unprecedented levels of outside spending by independent groups, including labor unions, the local chamber of commerce and the Lincoln Club. The Democratic Party spent more than $1 million supporting Fletcher — more money than either local party has spent on any other candidate this decade.
The landslide victory surpassed the margins in the 5th District, which was not considered a competitive seat. Republican Jim Desmond beat Democrat Michelle Gomez, 59 percent to 41 percent.
Republican Jim Desmond speaks to supporters at the U.S. Grant Hotel on Nov. 6, 2018, after winning election to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. (Lori Lum/Spark Photography)
The North County seat is held by termed-out Republican Supervisor Bill Horn. Desmond, the mayor of San Marcos, raised about $500,000. Gomez, a legislative analyst, entered the race late and raised about $50,000.
inewsource’s precinct-level map shows Gomez won precincts in Borrego Springs, Carlsbad and Oceanside, in some cases with a 10-point margin. But most of the district is unincorporated land, where Desmond dominated.
Because of technical problems, the Registrar of Voters Office was unable on Wednesday to provide precinct-level voting data after 100 percent of precincts were reporting. Those problems were resolved Thursday, allowing inewsource to update its voting results maps in the county supervisors races.
The registrar’s office is continuing to count 490,000 mail-in and provisional ballots. The office has 30 days from the election to certify the official results.
Click here to see precinct results for the two San Diego County Board of Supervisors races decided in the Nov. 6, 2018, election.
UPDATED at 5:50 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018: The San Diego County Board of Supervisors election maps for this story now show the results with 100 percent of the precincts reporting.
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