Will District 2 Tip Partisan Balance Of San Diego City Council?

San Diego City Council District 2 became a hotbed of campaign spending this election season, as Republicans fight to keep Lorie Zapf amid a challenge from Democrat Jen Campbell.

Zapf was first elected in 2010 and has already served two terms, but is allowed to run for a third despite term limits because of the city's 2011 redistricting. She has been a reliable ally of Mayor Kevin Faulconer, also a Republican, and a firewall against Democrats on the council who lack the six-vote supermajority to pass their own legislation and override mayoral vetoes.

Zapf easily won first place in the June 6 primary election with about 43 percent of the vote. Campbell, a physician and acupuncturist, came in a distant second with 21 percent.

The San Diego County Democratic Party has spent more than $100,000 to help elect Campbell in hopes of expanding the party's five-vote majority on the council to six. A super PAC funded by unions and local businessman Scott Borden spent even more — roughly $223,000 as of Oct. 20 — opposing Zapf.

RELATED: Democrats Pin 'Supermajority' Hopes On City Council District 2

Zapf and her supporters, namely the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and the conservative Lincoln Club of San Diego County, have more than matched that spending, funding mailers and attack ads on TV targeting Campbell.

District 2 includes Point Loma, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and the Midway District. Local elected offices in California are officially nonpartisan, though party affiliation often plays a role in shaping policy debates.

The two candidates largely agree on some of the district's most controversial issues, namely growth and development. Both oppose a plan to raise building height limits along the $2.1 billion trolley extension through the district, reflecting the anger of nearby homeowners that taller transit-oriented development may block their coastal views.

But Campbell is far more open to requiring private developers to shoulder the costs of building more subsidized low-income housing. Zapf has resisted that in the past, siding with the building industry's arguments that such mandates ultimately raise the costs of middle-class housing.