The Weekender for November 10

This story first appeared in inewsource’s weekend newsletter. Sign up for it here.

Working the night shift isn’t a regular occurrence at inewsource, but on Election Day many of us were up past midnight to deliver you the news on Twitter and Instagram. Working the downtown election parties were reporter Jill Castellano, photographer Megan Wood and intern Lauren Mapp, while intern Nicole Tyau was in Del Mar with Democratic congressional candidate Mike Levin. (Check out some photos of the night below).

But the real MVP award goes to our director of data and visuals, Brandon Quester, who was awake for 36 hours straight building precinct-level maps of the election results. With the help of former inewsource reporter Leonardo Castaneda (he starts a new reporting job Monday in the Bay Area), they created searchable maps for eight races and three ballot measures.

The sheer amount of work they pulled off is nothing short of amazing. Hats off to them.

If you haven’t had a chance to explore the maps, carve out some time this weekend.

Enjoy your Saturday, and thank you for reading!

– Shyla Nott

Mapping the 2018 election results

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, here’s how San Diego County voters cast ballots in the Nov. 6, 2018, election. Click on a race or measure to see the election results by precinct. You can also put in your address to see how your precinct voted.

San Diego City Council

For the first time since 1991, San Diego voters ousted incumbent City Council members seeking re-election. Tuesday’s results mean Democrats will now have a 6-3 supermajority on the council. See the maps for the four City Council races here. See the analysis here.

49th & 50th House Districts

Democrat Mike Levin won the 49th Congressional District seat over Republican Diane Harkey. And Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter won the 50th Congressional District seat over Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar. See the maps for both races here. See the analysis here.

County Board of Supervisors

Democrat Nathan Fletcher won the District 4 seat in a landslide with 66 percent of the vote to Republican Bonnie Dumanis’ 34 percent. in the 5th District, Republican Jim Desmond beat Democrat Michelle Gomez, 59 percent to 41 percent. See the maps here for both races. See the analysis here.

SDSU West & SoccerCity

Measure G, the SDSU West proposal to develop the former Qualcomm Stadium site into a football stadium and western campus for San Diego State, prevailed over Measure E, the SoccerCity proposal. See the maps here. See the analysis here.

Gas Tax Repeal

California’s Proposition 6 failed to repeal Senate Bill 1, a 12-cent gas tax increase and vehicle registration fee the Legislature passed in 2017. But in San Diego County, 52 percent of voters favored the measure compared to 44 percent statewide. See the maps here. See the analysis here.

What it took to build the election maps

By now I hope you’ve seen our maps showing precinct-level voting from Tuesday’s election. Our goal is always to publish as soon as data is available, and this year we had maps up by 6 a.m. Wednesday. By Thursday, we were able to update them to show 100 percent of precincts reporting. We’ll update them one more time — probably in early December after the registrar of voters finishes counting 490,000 mail-in and provisional ballots.

At inewsource, we say “it takes a village.” These maps were no different. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, we used sample voter returns to build templates for eight key races and three ballot measures. These included 12 individual maps, three journalists to edit, build and code them, and lots and lots of coffee. Did I mention we didn’t sleep for almost three days? I’m not crying, you’re crying.

On a more serious note, it’s important to see how our community voted, and we pride ourselves on our ability to share this level of detail with you, our readers. I won’t bore you with the details of our JavaScript files, HTML templates, Django CMS or data queries to make it all happen. What I will say is we think it was all worth it, and we hope you enjoy what we’ve built.

– Brandon Quester

Click here to go to the precinct maps.

Follow Brandon on Twitter.

Journalism’s impact

In 2016, reporter Brad Racino discovered the city of San Diego was not enforcing a transparency law called Section 225. It was passed in 1992 and mandated every company doing business with the city disclose the name and identity of everyone involved in the transaction.

Brad reported the city had more than $3 billion in contracts with more than 1,000 private companies, yet rarely knew the financial interests behind them.

Over the course of his reporting, the San Diego City Council voted to revise the vaguely worded transparency law and recommended the proposed changes go on the November 2018 ballot.

On Tuesday, Measure J passed with more than 85 percent. That’s almost the same margin the original transparency law won by in 1992, when it got 86 percent of the vote. Maybe this time the city will enforce it.

If you value this kind of in-depth, investigative reporting — and we know you do — please help keep our mission going by donating to inewsource. During the month of November, your donation will be doubled through #NewsMatch. Donate here.

The 2018 election in photos

Photographer Megan Wood and interns Nicole Tyau and Lauren Mapp were out documenting the final days of the 2018 election.

: Former San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio, who led the effort to put Proposition 6 on the ballot to repeal a gas tax increase, is shown at the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego. (Megan Wood/inewsource)

: Democrat Nathan Fletcher, who won the District 4 county Board of Supervisors seat, takes a photo with a supporter at the Hotel Republic on Nov. 6, 2018. (Megan Wood/inewsource)

: Democrat Jennifer Campbell, who won a seat on the San Diego City Council, is shown at Golden Hall on Nov. 6, 2018, in downtown San Diego. (Megan Wood/inewsource)