Candidates, Issues In 50th, 52nd & 53rd Congressional Districts

Speaker 1: 00:00 Candidates for San Diego's congressional districts are campaigning furiously. A head of the March primary. We look at who's running, who's making waves, and if the issues in three contested races. I'm Mark Sauer and the KPBS round table starts now. Speaker 2: 00:19 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:23 welcome to our discussion of the week stop stories. I'm Mark Sauer and joining me at the KPBS round table today. KPBS reporter Prius or either Michael Smollins columnist with the San Diego union Tribune KPBS investigative reporter. I meet the Sharma and reporter Matt Hoffman of KPBS news. Well, it took a scandal playing out over years, resulting in felony charges, a plea deal and resignation, but for the first time in 40 years, someone not named Hunter will be representing San Diego's 50th congressional district. It's a wide open race and a rare district in California, one that heavily favors Republicans and Priya. Start with who's running some familiar names here? Speaker 3: 01:01 That's right. We have a state Senator, Brian Jones, who represents much of the 50th district already. He lives in the 50th district along with a Mar camp and Shar, who many people might be familiar with him. He ran against Dunkin Hunter back in 2018 he's a former Obama administration official. Um, he's running on the democratic side. That's right. We have Darryl Eissa who was a nine term Congressman. I'm in the 49th district. He's obviously a well known California businessmen. A lot of people might be familiar with his name as well. And then we also have radio host and former San Diego city Councilman Carl de Mio. And what's interesting right now is that governor Gavin Newsome actually decided not to hold a special election, so there'll be no representation in the 50th district for the next year. So a lot of the voters up there who I've gotten a chance to speak to are just waiting for this primary to happen because they want someone else to get into that seat, um, in January of 2010 Speaker 1: 01:54 and of course, Hunter couldn't vote for the longest time anyway, so they really haven't had a representative for for a long time. Yeah. And briefly remind us of the, uh, the bounders there. It's mostly East County, right? Speaker 3: 02:04 Yeah. So it's a lot of San Diego County. It includes a lot of the suburban and outlying areas like San Marcos, Fallbrook, Alpine, Ramona, Escondido, Santi, Lakeside, and El con El Cahone. And it also goes, I'm up to some of the, uh, areas in Imperial County as well. Speaker 1: 02:22 All right. Now, as you noted, competent ajar came with just a few points of defeating an entrenched incumbent. Of course he had, he had an opponent under indictment that might be a bit of an advantage there. How's he positioning itself as a Democrat out there this time? Speaker 3: 02:35 That's right. He lost by fewer than 9,000 votes last time, which, as you mentioned, is the closest that anyone has ever come to. Um, potentially defeating Dunkin Hunter. Um, and he, you know, says very openly that he's been campaigning for the seat for three years. So he's hoping that, um, a lot of the familiarity that he was able to build in the last election, that the voters there will remember him. Obviously, he's a Democrat. This is a hugely red district, won one of the most reliably red districts in California, but he also has campaigned as a little bit of a moderate, uh, Republic, uh, sorry, moderate Democrat. Um, he always talks about how he owns guns. Um, his position on border and immigration issues. He, you know, wants immigration reform, but he also wants a strong border. Um, so it's kind of interesting to see how he's appealed to some of the voters up there. Obviously there was a lot of changing demographics in the 50th. Um, there is a big immigrant and refugee population, so I think he's also trying to court that vote as well. Speaker 1: 03:35 And he doesn't like the green new deal. We should point out too. Very interesting from a Democrat and Michael, your comedy and notes that companies are a, is kind of hedging on whether even would have voted to impeach Donald Trump, which is what nearly all Democrats in Congress, uh, uh, you know, obviously voted to do a, is this a women winning formula in this district to go kind of Republican light Speaker 4: 03:57 drop the term kinda. He is hedging. He's just not saying how he would vote and it won't get into the details. It's a long explanation. He has, why is it a winning combination? It's going to be tough. Uh, you know, it's still a very Republican district. I think his best hope was for a Dunkin Hunter to stay in the race and win. Uh, but the competition he would face of either of those three prominent Republicans will be very difficult. Can you do it? You know, anything can happen. But as we were just talking that he is really playing up his, um, his East County roots, his roots in the district. He does live in the district and you know, we know that a couple of the prominent ones, Darryl Leisa and Carl de Mio do not live in the district, which isn't a requirement to run for Congress surprises a lot of people. Speaker 4: 04:37 Right. Does it bother constituents, you know, to varying degrees. We have this long debate, does it, is it something we more care about? Then the constituents in the East County, you know, the, there's a certain parochial pride there and I think it resonates a little bit more there, but you go back and forth. There are Lysa, in a previous incarnation of the district, we represented actually represented about a third or give or take of the 50th district. So, you know, there's all that, but, uh, but not only is he playing up as East County roots, but also his sort of East County sensibilities and, uh, you know, the, uh, the difficult question for him on impeachment is one of those because he knows him. You know, I mean, this is a district that supported Donald Trump by 15 points over Hillary Clinton. Uh, the question is, does that sort of waffling lose him any kind of, uh, traction? Not only potentially with, with, you know, some Republicans who might say, you know, you got to take a stand on important issues, but you know, the progressive Democrats are a little, you know, concerned about that. But you know, he's the one they're going to vote for. Speaker 1: 05:42 All right, well let's turn to the, you mentioned Republicans and I segue, let's talk about Brian Jones and we'll get into the other two maybe more familiar names. Speaker 3: 05:48 Yeah, so Brian Jones, I would say out of the three is kind of the one who isn't as interested in the mud slinging, um, that we're seeing on between de Mio and Daryl Eissa. He really wants to try to campaign on, you know, the fact that he is now working as a state Senator in Sacramento. He believes that he's been able to reach across the aisle and obviously I'm a super democratic state and you know, get stuff done. But he's also a pastor, so he likes to talk about the Bible. He likes to talk about the fact that he lives in the 50th district. Um, he also loves guns. So he's really trying to appeal to a lot of those just, um, cultural things that I guess you would think of when you think of the 50th district. Speaker 1: 06:30 And then Michael, let's get into this whole kind of battle between the other two Republicans out there. Eissa and DiMaio. Each one comes into this with, with some baggage. Speaker 4: 06:38 Well they've been around for a long time and I guess that that, uh, you know, comes with the territory. You know, I used to had a, when he was a young man, some run ins with the law, uh, and never spent, you know, prison time or anything like that. That was a long time ago. I think the, the biggest political, uh, liability is, you know, he represented a different district. He decided not to run in that district cause he likely was going to lose. He was sort of on the run by the Democrats and the big blue wave Velazco around weekly protests. So yeah, we could protest outside his office. So he, uh, you know, he's running in this district. Another thing that, uh, we'll see. It hasn't really come up, but you know, he didn't support the big tax cut, uh, because he thought that it would hurt homeowners in his district because of the cost of, you know, the evaluation in their houses. Speaker 4: 07:20 Very anti-tax district. And Carl de Milo was who, you know, is a, you know, tax payer advocate. I think that's even on his ballot laws, on the gas tax we sell, but that's his push. DiMaio um, you know, he's well known. He's, uh, you know, his radio talk show is syndicated or what's indicated. He's not doing it right now. He was a very prominent member of city council, but he hasn't won a lot. Uh, he won that city council seat, but he ran for mayor. He didn't win. He ran for Congress. He was thinking about running for mayor again. Uh, the Republicans said, no, we want Kevin Faulkner. Um, so, uh, you know, the question is if he doesn't make it this time, is he continue going to, going to continue to find a seat. He ran against Scott Peters in the 52nd district, which we'll talk about, which is a much more moderate democratic leaning seat. And his message was very different than it is in the conservative 50th. So that's gonna come into play. Speaker 1: 08:09 And, and Pria this, uh, gotten nasty pretty fast. This a battle between Demario and uh, and Darryl ice. Speaker 3: 08:15 Yeah, I mean, we're already seeing ads that Daryl Eissa put out recently that had headlines from the Los Angeles blade and the Hill that referenced, um, Carl de being gay, um, Speaker 1: 08:27 the long been an opening gay policies. Speaker 3: 08:29 Right. And so, uh, there were actually reporters who found Daryl Eissa and confronted him about that and asked him, you know, why he chose to use those headlines in his campaign. And he, you know, very strategically said, you should call up those news organizations and ask them why they chose to use those words in the headlines. Um, but so you're seeing a lot of back and forth, which, uh, constituents in the 50th district are very used to. They saw a lot of those attack ads in the last election between Dunkin Hunter and DeMar camp. Shar and according to the latest polls, um, the UT 10 news poll that came out just a few weeks ago, um, Carl DeMaio and Daryl Eissa are neck and neck with 20% and 21% of, uh, the voters supporting them in that district. So it really seems like they are the two front runners on the Republican side. So I really don't think, um, those attack ads are going to go away anytime. Speaker 1: 09:16 So quickly explain the top tube, get through top two vote getters, no matter what party Speaker 4: 09:21 exactly. Go to November. Most primary still act like a partisan primary. A competent Josh should get into November a given. He does have, you know, there's one, at least one democratic opponent of a woman named Marissa Calderon, who is the executive director of this nationwide realtor, real estate, uh, association. She doesn't, hasn't pulled very highly, you know, will, will that make a difference? Most people don't seem to think so, but you, you never know. But he should be in there. So the real primary is among the Republicans. Michael, won't we talk about ISIS? I mean, he was handpicked by president Trump to lead a federal agency. Obviously that confirmation didn't go through. If it did, does he ever enter this race for Congress? I'll probably not. You know, I think that, do you know, he was going to, he wanted that and actually he sort of delayed his entry into the race. He was open about considering it to make sure that okay, the nail was in the coffin and that the Democrats in the Senate were going to block his confirmation regardless. So then he headed in this direction. So there is that sort of question, I guess. How much does he really want it? We know Carl de Mio really wants it. I mean he runs for a lot of things and he runs a full board. Speaker 1: 10:21 Well, going to be fascinating to see what happens, especially on the Republican side. Excuse me. We're going to move on now to the 52nd congressional district. We're incumbent, Scott Peters is facing a challenge from both left and right. And so, uh, Amica the Democrat. Peter's had some tough races early in his congressional career, but not lately, right? Speaker 5: 10:39 Not lately. So the 52nd congressional district used to be a very tough district, a very red district. It was considered a battleground district. And Scott Peters wrestled away the district back in 2012 from former Republican Brian Bilbray. Um, and then he it off a challenge from former San Diego Councilman Carl de Mio, um, in a squeaker of a race just like 2012 was, but things started to change in 2016 when Peter's beat Republican business woman by a wide margin. Um, and then he did it again in 2018. So this district used to be safely Republican. It was a red district, so, so it, so the 52nd congressional district spans most of coastal San Diego County, um, LA Jolla mission beach, downtown San Diego, that goes into Miramar. Um, and Poway, uh, not Miramar, Mira Mesa and Poway. Um, but so anyway, it used to be a safely Republican district. It started to turn purple a few years ago and now Democrats hold a 35,000, around a 35,000 voter advantage over Republicans. Speaker 1: 11:49 So still with an incumbent there, it's fairly safe. Now the whole thing has changed, as you said. Speaker 5: 11:54 Now he spent us, he's got, Peter spent eight years on the, uh, San Diego council for terms in this district. He's an environment lawyer, but he's getting a challenge from a Democrat. Tell us who she is and why she's taking up eaters. So it's Nancy Cassidy. She sits on the California food and agricultural board. She basically comes from the progressive wing of the democratic party and she says she got into this race because Peter's does not support the new green deal, the green new deal, the new green deal. Um, you know, she says, look, we're in a huge climate emergency and that emergency mandates that our congressmen like Scott Peters, democratic Congress people, congressional representatives support the new green deal. Now Scott, Peter says, look, I'm all for getting the United States off of fossil fuels, but I don't like the fact that this deal was created in somewhat of an echo chamber. It doesn't do much to reach across the aisle to build Republican consensus. And I think it should be sad that, uh, Peter's ended up endorsing former New York, uh, mayor Mike Bloomberg for president at this week, and now he is the national chair of Bloomberg's, uh, environments, note it's climate, energy and environmental council. So that Buffett's some criticism on, uh, the left of his environmental credentials. And as you said, he's a former environmental lawyer and, and Michael Cassidy's run before and lost, uh, to Republicans, uh, she ever any shot against your fellow? Speaker 4: 13:31 You know, I mean everybody has a shot lightening construct strike. I was like preface that, but probably not. I mean, Scott Peters a is involved with the presidential campaign. He's also a, one of the regional, uh, chairs of the democratic congressional campaign committee, which is, you know, sort of the, the, the campaign committee for the entire democratic race in the coming year. He's the head of the regional outlook. So obviously if he gets into trouble, he'll retrench, but he's looking at other things. He's pretty safe. Uh, you know, Nancy, Cassie is pretty much a one issue candidate. And as a I meet that was talking about, you know, Scott Peters is not a climate change denier. I mean he has a bipartisan climate related legislation that that's moved ahead and, and things like that. But understandably, people that support the green new deal are very adamant and, or you know, have protested outside his office, other democratic offices. So they're targeting Democrats. Is she strong enough to do that and might he lose some votes? Probably, but not enough. Not to get to November. Uh, and she probably won't beat the Republican. Speaker 5: 14:36 Well that neatly brings up the Republican in this race here. Tell us about Jim develo. Right. Well, he's born and bred in this region. I think he's from uh, Grossmont originally. Uh, he got his undergrad and an MBA from Harvard holds five patents. He's a tech executive. He's been involved in helping, um, the County develop its food insecurity policy. And uh, he's a Republican Speaker 1: 15:02 and he's skeptical about manmade climate change even for a guy with a type Speaker 5: 15:08 hit it in that he says he's not all together, sold that climate change is caused by humans. But at the same time, he calls climate change our greatest challenge, our greatest environmental challenge. And he also says that he's in favor of getting the United States off of fossil fuels. Speaker 1: 15:27 Ah, is he embracing the green new deal now? I don't believe that's probably not in the card. Well it is, it is odd in, in, uh, in California at this point to see someone who really is running with any kind of skepticism in the midst of a, of the climate crisis as you pointed out. Speaker 5: 15:43 It is. And I think he's hedging just because of those different positions he's taken on the environment. He's hedging a little bit in this. Speaker 4: 15:49 That's true. It makes it easy to attack, you know, and said that he, it's, it's more nuanced. He believes climate change is happening. It's a big challenge, but there's enough there to raise questions about them and that in that district, coastal districts, people well everywhere, but particularly in a district like that, people are very sensitive I think to climate change, sea level rise. So, uh, if there's a way to go after him, if there's a need to go after him, you can imagine that probably would be it. Any polling so far in this particular, this no, because I don't think that, you know, it's still a shotgun. Scott Peters who would lose, yeah, I'm doing good through comfortably. Speaker 1: 16:25 We're going to turn now to the 53rd congressional district where you can't tell the players without a scorecard, way too many candidates at this point 15 to comb through in the time that we have. So we're going to have to just focus on those who appear a viable here, which is always a touchy thing. But, uh, the seat opened up, uh, when 20 year congressional, uh, veterans, Susan Davis announced your retirement, Matt, and tell us where the 53rd is and how the voter registration stacks up there. Speaker 6: 16:49 Right? So the 53rd actually covers a really large portion of San Diego. I mean, we have the city of San Diego, Hillcrest old town. You have LA Mesa, you have parts of El Cahone, then you, you, you go down South, you have parts of Chula Vista. So it really encompasses a large part of San Diego County and lots of different voters fall into that, uh, registration. Uh, it's a two to one margin. It's a very, very heavily democratic, um, district. Uh, about 180,000 registered, uh, Democrats, uh, two 90,000 registered Republicans, about 14,000 independence, uh, talked to a political science professor who says this is an extremely safe seat for Democrats. Um, I mean, regardless, even if a Republican were to make that a primary, it's almost guaranteed that a Democrat's gonna win this seat. Speaker 1: 17:30 All right, so let's talk about the so-called acknowledged front runners at this point. Speaker 6: 17:35 Well, just got a handful out of all a handful. Yeah. I mean, I think 20 more or more than two dozen ended up throwing their hat in or saying that they were going to run 15 ended up on the ballot. One of those has dropped out. So we have 14 candidates that will be appearing on the ballot. When we talk about some of the top candidates, we could look at fundraising. Now our latest reports are from the end of September. There's a fundraising deadline coming up. Uh, we know that Sarah Jacobs is the top fundraiser. Get her up right now in terms of $300,000. Uh, George had Gomez current San Diego city council president, $200,000, and then a us Marine Corps veteran Janessa gold Beck around a hundred thousand dollars from the Republican side. There are three Republicans that are running in this race. A formula Ramos, uh, she ran for school board seat in Chulavista lost, but she got about 30,000 votes. Speaker 6: 18:19 So she thinks that she's got some name recognition there. Uh, she's raised, um, uh, she's actually filed her latest campaign filings and she's raised a little over $40,000, uh, the most out of any Republicans, uh, but obviously far less than the Democrats have race or it start with Georgia at a Gomez. She wants to springboard from San Diego city council president to Congress. Why? What's her fluff? Yeah, she's been in San Diego city council for, you know, this ended up being four years. Uh, she's decided not to run again, so she's all in here, uh, with the 53rd. Um, she's running on a lot of different issues. I mean, she thinks that she brings experience from doing some activism in that district of Barrio Logan area. Um, she's campaigning on a lot of things, housing affordability, bringing more federal dollars to San Diego. She says they don't get enough access to education, job safety, um, climate. Speaker 6: 19:03 She, she really wants to bring federal dollars to help cities as they build out these climate action plans to make sure that they're actually enforcing these climate action plans. Um, and she's also a big transit advocate. Uh, obviously we're trying to build a grand central station here in San Diego and she says that there's just not enough local dollars there. We're going to need federal dollars and her plan is to help bring those. All right. A well known name is Sarah Jacobs. So tell us about her. She's upfront about being well funded thanks to her family. I should note that Jacob's family are longtime contributors to KPBS, right? Yeah. Obviously her granddaughter, the cofounder of Qualcomm's, so yeah, they have a quite a bit of money. Um, but, uh, she, um, obviously she worked in Obama state department was a part of the Hillary Clinton campaign, so she's got some experience. Speaker 6: 19:45 Um, she's running on a number of different things. Um, climate change. She says she's hears a lot of people talking about climate change, young people, gun violence. People are scared to go to school. She wants to change that. Um, but then we see some of the same things. Um, in terms of, you know, housing affordability, um, due to her time in the state department, she really wants to go and help with foreign policy, get us out of that. Out of these endless Wars she talks about. Um, and the other thing she's campaigning heavily on, she's been a, uh, childhood poverty advocate, ending childhood poverty. Um, but talking about childcare, she says people are spending way too much money on childcare, especially in San Diego, 30 to 40% of their income. She wants to make a mandate that no, you know, no person pays more than 10% of their income on childcare. All right. In a woman who's drawn a favorable comments at candidate forums and kind of just come out of nowhere really is a Janessa Goldberg. What's her back? Oh we know her. She came out, she came out of the Marine Corps last August. Um, and uh, um, yes, he's running a campaign, um, that centered around a number different things. I mean we talk about housing affordability. She's really hitting hard on the climate crisis. She says it's the biggest threat to our democracy is climate change, which is kind of interesting. Um, but her mother has, has, Speaker 1: 20:52 is she running that from a defense standpoint here? Cause the Pentagon is, is his [inaudible] Speaker 6: 20:57 yeah, totally. Yeah. She, she, she is, I mean she, she has, she knows from her experience in the Marine Corps. Um, but also she's running on things like prescription drugs, prescription that are too expensive. Also longterm health care. Her mom is in an assisted living facility and she says those costs, I mean, I know too, they're astronomically through the roof. Um, and we, we need to lower those. Um, she also believes that too many votes in Congress are bought off by big donors and she doesn't want to ever be bought off by any big donors. Speaker 1: 21:22 Okay. Michael, what kind of on the democratic side here in this race, uh, were not surprised to see any of these, uh, candidates talking about the issues that we've, we've covered? Speaker 6: 21:30 No, it's a very democratic district and they're, they're all kind of on the same page. There's some nuances, some support, Medicare for all, some others don't, but you know, want to improve Obamacare and heading that direction. I think the same with the green new deal or theF , but I think most of them are on board with that. Um, you know, when this first started, it really seemed like a two person race, uh, Gomez and, um, Sarah Jacobs, um, who we should know had run before in the, uh, 1449 well, and there was talk that she, we went, Scott Peters in the 52nd was all but certain, it seemed to run for mayor that she was gonna run there. So there's a little bit of a district shopping rap, uh, against her in that regard. Uh, you know, Gomez doesn't live in the district, but she has been of that area for some time and she's of the, you know, the grassroots, the real, you know, the, the progressive of San Diego progressive, I believe she got the democratic party endorsement that a lot of other endorsements. Speaker 6: 22:25 Yeah. So you sorta got the, the Jacob's name and money against, you know, Gomez with, with what she brings to the table. You know, the question is Janessa gold, Becca, can she break through? It's going to be tough, but frankly, she's kinda got a bit of the buzz, I don't want to say more so than the other ones, but uh, she's impressed a lot of, uh, kind of establishment Democrats that have support other candidates but have actually contributed to her, which says something. And I think she's acknowledged that she really has an uphill battle here. Yeah. And I think talking to a lot of the candidates, at least these quote unquote top four, um, a lot of them, they think that there's not a whole lot of name recognition out there. I mean, people might know Georgette from her time on council. People might know Jacobs from our previous running Congress, maybe the family name, but they really don't feel like there's a whole lot of name recognition out there. Speaker 6: 23:04 That's why you're seeing people like Sarah Jacobs hammering TV ads right now. I mean, I mean you turn on the channel you really can't get away from, she's putting out tons of mailers. It's also worth noting that, um, the um, Oh, what am I trying to say? Who was the Congresswoman? Susan Davis? She had gotten her all, I know she hasn't, she hasn't endorsed anyone in this race. Um, she did endorse air Jacobs before for the 49th, but she hasn't endorsed anyone in this race. And she says that's because she wants to let voters make the decision. Now you talked to political science professors, they say, well, you don't want to be, you don't want to pick some like either if it's, say it's Georgette and Jacobs, you don't want to pick the wrong one and then come out on the other side saying, I didn't pick my successor. Speaker 1: 23:38 Well, and there's some we should know. There are certainly several other, uh, progressive Democrats running. Uh, tell us a little more about, uh, on the Republican side, the [inaudible]. Speaker 6: 23:46 So there's three Republicans running in the race, uh, uh, family Ramos. Um, I guess you can say she's the most well funded Republican in the race right now. Um, and she's running on what she calls bread and butter issues. She's a retired nurse, um, and she really tries to play up her family values. Um, I think it says mom as, uh, her job description, mom and nurse. Um, she says, you know, she wants to campaign on bringing jobs here, lowering taxes, um, increasing border security, kind of traditional Republican talking points there. Um, healthcare should depend on the free market. So it's kind of a stark difference to the Republicans and she feels as a Republican that she's very underrepresented in the district, but she knows that she has a very, very tough uphill battle. Um, I mean she's going to be outspent by a very large margin by Democrats. Speaker 6: 24:28 She's also been pretty outspoken. I'm an outspoken opponent of to abortion, which is kind of, it would be a tough sell in that heavily democratic district, kind of rich big supporter of Duncan Hunter organizing rallies forum. There's clips of her walking into golden hall with him too. So she's tied to him. A couple of seconds left here. The other two Republicans, uh, two other Republicans, one's a software engineer. Um, they're really not out there campaigning too much. I mean, if you look on the FTC, they haven't even had any campaign, uh, donations that are real narrowed down to this, the handful of, Oh, it's really going to narrow it down. And I mean, is there a chance that Republican wins in the primary? If you say that Gomez, Jacobs and gold back split the vote and one of those comes out of it, there's a chance. But then all Republicans would have to vote for one candidate and see two Democrats though, get through it and yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a district. And given the, the fire power of the, the leading candidates that could happen and how little known and little resources that Republicans have. But uh, there's a lot of Democrats beyond those three we've mentioned. So we'll see. They split it up. The Republican party has not endorsed in this race. They said there was no viable candidate. Speaker 1: 25:27 All right, well we'll see what happens as we go along. And that wraps up another week of stories at the KPBS round table. Like to thank my guests Prius or either at KPBS news and Michael Smollins at the San Diego union Tribune, Meetha Sharma and Matt Hoffman also have KPBS and for comprehensive coverage of all the races and issues in the March, California primary checkout, our election guide@kpbs.org I'm Mark Sauer. Thanks for joining us today on the round table. [inaudible].