Category: Election

By Paul Krueger

I take serious issue with the Union-Tribune’s latest story on Midway Rising, (see image above) and the paper’s  failure to include a response from any of the numerous, very credible opponents of two new “special interest” state laws that allow the city and Midway Rising’s developers to ignore established environmental review.

It’s also beyond my comprehension that the UT’s reporting lacks any response from the equally well-informed critics of the Midway Rising project, as currently proposed.

Sen. Weber-Pierson’s introduction of her special interest legislation (Senate Bills 344 and 958) was immediately met with a well-documented backlash from San Diegans who objected to what they saw as a blatant attempt to thwart legitimate legal challenges to Midway’s Rising negative and irreversible environmental impacts.

Both of the reporters who wrote this story cover housing issues as part of their important and influential work at the Union-Tribune. I must assume they’ve followed the very public debate about the merits and drawbacks of special state legislation that allows developers of a specific project to skirt established environmental reviews.

In San Diego, the sources for an informed, intelligent, and credible criticism of SB 344 and 958 are obvious, starting with attorney Everett DeLano, who successfully challenged the city’s failure to complete an adequate environmental impact study

David Garrick wrote a great summary of who’s supporting the different candidates in San Diego’s city council races on Sept. 26. Here, I’ve tried to summarize his findings in a more brief format (with the assumption that readers generally know who the candidates are — which means I don’t need to explain them).

Garrick’s accounting is based on contributions to candidates reflected in new campaign finance disclosures filed this week. “The new disclosures cover not just fundraising and spending by independent committees but also individual contributions directly to candidates’ campaigns.”

First, to remind readers of the rules. When supporters contribute directly to candidates instead of to political action committees, they can’t contribute more than the city’s $800 maximum. Independent expenditure committees — which must raise and spend money independently from the candidate they support — also make it possible for corporations, labor unions and merchant groups to participate at all. City campaign rules bar those types of organizations from contributing directly to candidates, but they can contribute to committees that either support or oppose individual candidates.

District 2

In the District 2 battle between Democrat Nicole Crosby and Republican-turned-independent Richard Bailey

• Crosby leads in independent committee money $203,000 to Bailey’s $165,000 since July 1. During the primary, committees supporting Bailey drew by far the most cash.
• Bailey raised by far the most money of any candidate in the city during the period — $51,000.

Latest UC Berkeley survey: Democratic candidate has 58% support among likely voters, while Republican Steve Hilton receives 33%.

Por SanDiegoRed / September 26, 2026 

Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor with roots in Tijuana, is holding a wider lead over Steve Hilton in the race, according to the latest survey from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

The poll puts Becerra at 58% among likely voters, compared with 33% for Hilton. That gives the Democratic candidate a 25-point margin and marks a seven-point increase from the difference recorded in Berkeley’s August survey.

The new numbers also come as another California poll released in September showed a similar gap between the two candidates.

by Tessa Balc / Times of San Diego / Sept. 29, 2026

The two Candidates vying to represent San Diego’s District 2 — which covers Point Loma, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and Clairemont — faced off Monday over how to address city spending and homelessness, two reliable parts of any city debate.

But at the evening candidate forum they also  jumped in  on the recently re-ignited debate over automated license plate readers.

Both Nicole Crosby, a deputy city attorney, and Richard Bailey, the former mayor of Coronado, rehashed their respective positions on topics like the proposed Midway Rising development and Liberty Station leasing at the forum, hosted by the Point Loma Association and League of Women Voters at Liberty Station Conference Center. This time around, though, as the two candidates who survived the primary, they had more opportunities to take direct shots at one another ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

The first question of the night, about where the budget should be cut, provided Bailey the opportunity to repeat a mantra from his campaign: The city has a spending problem not a revenue problem. The solution, he says, does not necessitate cuts to programs, but significant trims to personnel  – as in back to 2015 staffing levels.

“We have to restructure City Hall, starting with cutting back personnel across most departments, so that we can actually do more with less instead of doing less with more.”

For Crosby, this line of reasoning was an opportunity to question if it is effective to compare two different decades in city government, whether based on nationwide inflation or the city’s specific circumstances.

“If we’re looking at a 2015 baseline number that Mr. Bailey would like you to look at, we need to remember that we were operating with a shoestring budget,” she said.

“Proposition B and the pension decimation and salary freezes in that era destroyed (the) city infrastructure we had, and I mean human capital as opposed to the longstanding infrastructure we have.”

By Paul Krueger

In their recent, pay-wall protected analysis of City Council District 4 candidate Martha Abraham’s campaign, Voice of San Diego editors opined that “conservatives” constitute a significant base of Abraham’s support.

I responded by email to VOSD editor Scott Lewis and assistant editor Will Huntsberry, and acknowledged that some “conservatives” do in fact support Abraham’s campaign.
But that one-word description overstates their influence, ignores important political differences among those supporters, and understates the non-partisan nature of the support for Abraham’s challenge to incumbent Henry Foster.

It’s true that Abraham’s supporters include some political activists who skew to the political “right.” Some of them are outspoken — even vitriolic — critics of some Democratic officeholders, including Todd Gloria and Gavin Newsom. And, yes, some also support Republican candidates.

They also helped organize “San Diego United Communities,” and have prominent — if not outsized-roles — in that group’s actions.

(For the record, while I share their posts and respect their opposition to the Mayor’s hyper-development policies, I’m not a member of San Diego United Communities. That group was formed by activists who were disillusioned with the apolitical, non-partisan and non-confrontative stance taken by the San Diego Community Coalition, which Kate Callen, Frank Gormlie, and I organized.)

I support Martha’s campaign. I’ve known her since she made her first public comments during council meetings opposing the controversial “Footnote 7” policy that enabled developers

By Paul Krueger

The Voice of San Diego recently shared its paywall-protected wisdom that District 4 challenger Martha Abraham “…seems to have built something of a coalition between conservatives, anti-development folks and southeastern San Diego residents that believe the area has never gotten its fair and equitable share of resources.”

I vehemently disagree with VOSD’s assertion that any of Abraham’s credible supporters (myself and all my colleagues included) are “anti-development,” and shared my reasoning in an email to Voice editor Scott Lewis and assistant editor Will Huntsberry.

Will’s response, which I’ll share at the end of this column, was disappointing in its brevity and reasoning. But, hey, it’s totally his (and Lewis’s) prerogative to reject audience input and double-down on their chosen narrative. In fact, these civil editorial disagreements are what we should most cherish and defend in a (still hopefully) free and open society that respects the First Amendment (despite — and perhaps because of — Donald Trump’s latest attacks on the media).

Here’s the portion of my email that responded to VOSD’s comment about “anti-development folks” and their support for Abraham:

“Calling any of Abraham’s supporters ‘anti-development’ is intellectually lazy and just plain wrong. In my six years of studying and speaking out on this issue as an activist freed from my obligations as a neutral journalist and observer, I have not encountered even one credible activist who can accurately be described as ‘anti-development’.

By Steve Rodriquez

Someone whispers, the circus is in town. A dark
caravan is seen parading down the road. We might expect
to see trained lions, and the trapeze artist;
death-defiers treading a tightrope balanced high above.

Instead, we are treated to a disappearing act. Sheer scale of magic
catches everyone by surprise. Scary clowns, wearing olive drab
outfits – complete with black masks, helmets, ICE cool military swag—
pour out of their armored vehicles. Under a big top canopy

of blue coastal skies, they form three-ring spectacles
in front of restaurants, Home Depot lots, and apartment complexes.
Resembling Death Star troopers arriving far too late
for this year’s Comic Con, they begin disappearing humans

By Angelo Haynes

On Thursday evening, Sept.24, challenger Martha Abraham and incumbent Henry Foster III met at a community forum at the St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Paradise Hills to engage in a moderated discussion on the issues affecting voters in District 4. The forum was organized and coordinated by the Paradise Hills Foundation (PHF), a non-profit organization dedicated to the beautification of the Paradise Hills neighborhood and to improving residents’ quality of life.

Projects for PHF include: neighborhood cleanup and hauling efforts, arts funding (e.g. public murals), improvements to the main street of Paradise Hills (Reo Dr.), garbage cans, signage improvements, and home exterior assistance to elderly or indigent neighbors.

Nichelle A. Wentz, the president of the PHF, was on hand and stated that while many other community concerns affecting District 4, such as policing, Foot note 7 and small business development seemed to garner greater attention, issues affecting the Paradise Hills neighborhood were neglected. The Paradise Hills branch library for instance hasn’t had a capital improvement from the city in over 40 years. For Wentz, this forum was an opportunity to bring attention to her neighborhood and give residents a chance to ask candidates questions before the election.

All public questions participants had at the venue were to be written down and submitted to forum organizers in advance; these questions would then be read to the candidates at the end of the session. PHF organizers stated that this method of questioning was intended to screen for repetitive questions and to organize community concerns into topics to ascertain any patterns or themes for voters in the community.

And here’s the second one on Thursday, October 1, at the Point Loma Library. This one is hosted by the Peninsula Community Planning Board.

Speaker Mike Johnson could block the seating of victorious Democrats in the House of Representatives on January 3.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / September 23, 2026

After the 2020 presidential election that resulted in a clear victory for Joe Biden, Donald Trump tried mightily to overturn the outcome. He has persistently insisted to this day that he won and Biden lost. On January 6, 2021, Trump ordered then-Vice President Mike Pence to violate his constitutional duty to certify the duly elected electors before the joint session of Congress by counting only some of the electoral votes from certain states and returning the rest to state legislatures.

But Pence refused to obey Trump — and, in response, MAGA fanatics threatened him with execution by hanging. Court after court rejected Trump’s entreaties to reverse the results of the election.

Now it appears that Team Trump may be poised to undertake a similar tactic to prevent Democrats who prevail in the midterm elections from being seated in the House of Representatives.

In an explosive op-ed in The New Republic, former Judge Michael Luttig, a noted conservative, argues that the “catastrophic end [of U.S. democracy] could well come on January 3, 2027, when Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in Trump’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party.”

By JW August
 
If you check your email, you don’t have to be told election time is upon us. Please look at the email I received from the AFL-CIO (at end of article).  I can guess where they are coming from politically (Democratic) but what interests me is the service performed for me.  It quickly confirmed my registration details.  It is a more sophisticated “get out the vote” campaign.  Try it yourself.  But of course, the unions will have my voting and contact information.

I sent two widely respected academics the email and asked them if this AFL-CIO message demonstrates a new strategy for getting information on voters.  Both said the same thing, Carl Luna, the Director of the Institute for Civil Civic Engagement, also a professor at the University of San Diego and Thad Kousser, Co-Director for the Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections and a professor of political science at UC San Diego.

Challenger Martha Abraham in Attendance; Henry Foster a No-Show

By Angelo Haynes

On September 20, community members gathered at a forum to hold a discussion about community development in San Diego City council district 4. It was hosted by the Christian Fellowship Congregational Church UCC (United Church of Christ) in collaboration with the Racial Justice Coalition of San Diego, and held at the historic church location on Kelton Road just off the 94 east in the Emerald Hills neighborhood of southeast San Diego. Clovis Honore and Darwin Fishman of the Racial Justice Coalition facilitated the meeting and the ensuing group discussion.

The forum’s overall objective appeared to focus on bringing together current councilman Henry Foster III and challenger Martha Abraham to discuss their goals for District 4 and the controversial footnote 7, an illegal zoning ordinance change made under the tenure of then councilwoman Monica Montgomery-Steppe.

Many in the Southeastern San Diego community have decried the footnote after its widespread discovery, lamenting the implications of high-density housing and its impact on the Emerald hills community. Chief concerns appear to be potential impacts to fire evacuation safety of the area as increases in traffic on 60th Street, a two-lane road connecting to Federal Blvd, may be easily congested during an emergency. Not to mention, the daily traffic load increase from commuters making their way to the 94 freeway each day.