San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez his name is on the June primary ballot but it's not for city council because this year he's termed out. He's running for the District seat in the San Diego Community College Board. But the race Councilman Alvarez is already raising money for is two years away. He's announced his intention to run for the District 1 seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors which becomes vacant in 2020. Joining me to explain what's going on here is a news source reporter Leonardo Castañeda who's following the money in San Diego's political campaigns and Leah welcome. Happy to be here. What would be the reason to begin fundraising now for a campaign that's two years away. Right. So one reason that I talked to a political science professor Brian Adams here in San Diego. Here's what he told me. Let's hope that you raised a lot of money early. You and to build up this fake war chest will scare off other potential candidates. That's one theory. He's trying to Alvarez is trying to clear the field make sure there's not too many other contestants running for this election not make it into these huge melee fight with you know eight or nine candidates what Alvarez says is this is a huge district this is much bigger than his city council district which is about when he ran for it about 180000. This is about six. Thirty thousand people so you got to get out there early get to know people in Chula Vista and National City Corado parts of the board see that aren't in his city of San Diego district. So those are the two two arguments for running so early and how much has Alvarez raised so he's raised about one hundred nineteen thousand dollars which puts him ahead of some of the people running even this year for Board of Supervisor which is pretty surprising because again he has a very long time to go. And part of that is again when I talk to Adams he said you know some donors won they won. Established a relationship. Get in early with someone who is at the at the moment the frontrunner because he's the only runner. Where are the donations coming from at this point. Right now it's a pretty diverse mix. You have some people like Lawrence Haslam's his wife Susannah has who have a history of donating to Democratic candidates in San Diego. They've given. You also have a couple of council members a couple of his his fellow council members and you also have people who might be a little bit more surprising names like Thomas Southbury of Sudbury properties of David Malcolm who is a real estate investors people who have donated this year and in past years to the Lincoln Club which has not always been an ally of Democrat David Alvarez but he says you know we see eye to eye on this huge issue which is we need to build more housing. And so they're giving to him. So right now he has a pretty broad base of support at least when it comes to his his donors. LEO Are there any rules against fundraising this early for an election. Not really. You're able to as long as you say this is what I'm running for and you file all your paperwork on time. Candidates are able to start campaigning pretty early I think. Another example would be someone like Joel Anderson who in 2016 was going to run for or run against Dianne Jacob in the Board of Supervisors seat. He dropped out of that race and he's held on to that money in that committee for 2020 so you can as long as you're very clear about for when you're racing that money you can start pretty early and get a get a head start on your competitors in general how much fundraising does a San Diego County Board of Supervisors do I mean how much do they expect to raise for a race like that. Well we don't have a ton of experience because we haven't seen too many open seats which is important to keep in mind but we can look at the two races that we have this year. District 4 and District 5 and District 4 the top fundraisers have raised more than four hundred thousand dollars for an open seat. That's a very competitive seat. District 5 which has more conservative seat. We've seen two hundred thousand three hundred thousand dollars. So you know maybe a quarter to a third of the way there we won't know just how competitive district 1 will be. It's probably closer to District 5 which is very Republican seat is very Democrat district for us a little bit more of a swing district if you will. But you know he still has a long ways to go but these races are turning out to be very very expensive Republican Greg Cox has represented District 1 on the County Board of Supervisors for more than 20 years. Have the demographics in the district changed over that time. Yes they they've become a lot more Democrat. So I'm going to run a couple of quick numbers by you. I looked at 2000 so a few years after Cox was in office and then 2013 this year in 2000 Democrats had about 26 percent more registered voters than Republicans in Kocsis district. Today they have more than twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans so the district has become much more democratic usually a Republican has managed like you said to keep that seat for a very long time. But Democrats are I think feeling very hopeful that they can they can pick up the seat. Has anyone else been talked about as a possible candidate in District 1. One person that's been talked about tonight talked to him was State Senator Ben wait so he has a very long history in the South Bay. He represented the southern part of San Diego in the city council. He's been an assemblyman and he's someone he told me you know people have been coming to me asking me if I'd be interested which he said that's a fairly normal part of you know a seat opens up an open seat is always very attractive to a lot of people who have a storied political past when he said people have come to me asked me about it and he said you know never say never. He had said at the time that he would never run for the Assembly and he ended up deciding to run and I think he felt like he was criticized for that so he's leaving the door open to run. So Ben says one of the names that we've heard floated but there's you know a lot of elected officials in the South Bay who might be interested in this position because like you said first time it will be open then I think by then it will be 25 years. The thing that makes this situation even more unusual is that David Alvarez is now. This year in fact in the June primary running for a seat on the community college board has he said why he's doing that. That's right. When I talked to him he told me that he wants to bring in all this experience that he has. He's been on the emptiness he's been on the. He's been in the city council so he wants to take that experience and help the community college district. He is really focused on helping make the first two years of school free so he said you know I wasn't thinking of this in some grand scheme. I wanted to serve. So he said that he wants to continue serving the community and he saw this as an opportunity to do so. But yes he will he will be on your ballot this year. If he wins the Board of Supervisors stories in 2020 he won't be able to complete that term. That's right. If he wins both seats then he will have to leave the community college boy early. So that's something that I think voters will probably have to keep in mind. I've been speaking with our new source reporter Leonardo Castañeda and Leo thank you. Thank you for having me.
San Diego Councilman David Alvarez is barred by term limits from running for re-election this year, but he’s not done with local politics.
Alvarez has already raised a little more than $119,000 for a bid in 2020 to replace county Supervisor Greg Cox — more than some supervisor candidates running this year have raised.
Alvarez, a Democrat, announced in January 2017 that he would run for the seat Republican Cox has held since 1995. The councilman said he started campaigning early because of the size of Cox’s South County district. It includes parts of San Diego, as well as Coronado, Chula Vista, National City and Imperial Beach. About 633,000 people live in the district.
“And so you really need to get out there soon so that people get to know you and get to judge you, and get to decide whether they like you or they don't,” said Alvarez, who ran for San Diego mayor and lost to Kevin Faulconer in 2014.
Brian Adams, a San Diego State University political science professor, said Alvarez may be using a common tactic to try to clear the field for his run.
“If you raise a lot of money early, you build up this big war chest, you'll scare off other potential candidates,” Adams said.
Democrats want Cox’s seat
Despite Alvarez’s head start, the seat will be tempting for others, particularly Democrats. When Cox is termed out in 2020, it’ll be the first time his seat has been open in 25 years. The district has twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans.
So far, no one else is officially running for Cox’s seat. One name that has been mentioned as a possible contender is state Sen. Ben Hueso, a former assemblyman and San Diego councilman whose current district includes much of the area served by Cox.
“I won't lie, people have been talking about it, people have been coming to me, prodding me to run,” said Hueso, a Democrat. “But this is kind of normal in this process.”
For now, Hueso said, he is focused on winning re-election this year. He has raised more than $340,000 for that race in which he has one opponent, a retired judge who has raised less than $10,000.
The senator wouldn’t rule out running for county supervisor.
“You never know what happens in politics,” he said. “I never planned to be on the Senate, but I'm here and it was, again, people in my community asking me to run.”
Alvarez said he doesn’t think his early campaign cash will stop other candidates from running for Cox’s seat.
“I don't expect this to be easy at all, and it shouldn't be,” said Alvarez, who also is running this year for a seat on the San Diego Community College District board. He’s filed paperwork that he doesn’t intend to raise more than $2,000 for that campaign.
Adams said he doubts Alvarez’s strategy of fundraising early for the supervisor’s seat will eliminate all challengers.
“I suspect there'll be at least one or two other serious candidates that are running,” he said. “But there may be less serious candidates than there would be otherwise.”
San Diego County Democratic Party Chairwoman Jessica Hayes said possible contenders should start campaigning early. And if they can avoid an expensive primary with a lot of candidates attacking each other, even better, she said.
“My preference is for Democratic candidates not to hit at each other,” Hayes said. “That’s not always possible.”
Alvarez money from diverse crowd
Alvarez’s early donors include some well-known Democrats. Among them are fellow council members Barbara Bry and Chris Ward. Lawrence Hess, owner of San Diego real estate company Lehbros Ltd., and his wife, Suzanne, each gave Alvarez $1,600. Both have supported Democrats in the past.
But he also has received donations from Republican backers, including Thomas Sudberry, chairman of Sudberry Properties, and real estate investor David Malcolm.
Both contribute to the conservative Lincoln Club of San Diego County. Since Jan. 1, 2017, Sudberry has given the group almost $51,000, and Malcolm has given $17,500.
Alvarez said although he does not agree with Sudberry and Malcolm on many issues, he thinks their support of him is because of one area of agreement: “I really believe that we need to build more housing, and I think we see eye to eye on that.”
Adams said early campaign contributors sometimes donate as a way to build relationships with future elected leaders.
“The other thing to keep in mind is that donors can give to more than one candidate in a race, and they do all the time,” Adams said. “Tom Sudberry may be giving to Alvarez now. Next year, there may be a Republican running, and Sudberry may decide to give to that Republican, too.”
