Unease about economy pushes residents to elect Republican and independent candidates with experience governing cities
South County is a Democratic stronghold with a predominantly Latino population. But on Election Day, voters replaced the Latina mayors in Chula Vista and National City, both of them Democrats, with White men, one a Republican and one an independent.
South County has the highest concentration of Latinos of any region in the county, with about 61 percent, and the majority are registered to vote as Democrats, according to the county Registrar of Voters. In National City, Ron Morrison, a longtime council member with no party affiliation who has served as mayor three times, is leading the three-way contest to retake that position. Jose Rodriguez, a Democrat council member elected in 2020, is trailing in second. And Democrat Mayor Alejandra Sotelo-Solis, who is serving her first mayoral term, is in last place.
In Chula Vista, McCann appears to have had more people from across the city vote for him because he has had “that longtime documented work in the city” as opposed to his opponent, said Don Dumas, a Southwestern College trustee and U.S. history teacher at Bonita Vista High School.“I look at my colleague John McCann, with whom I have many disagreements on policy, but whom I personally respect, who has been working in the city for many years,” he said.
“I think people want, more than anything, local politics to produce tangible improvements in their lives,” he said. “Some of the suffering that Americans are going through, we’re not immune to that in South County. We’re going through it, too. The struggles with making ends meet, rising costs of housing and fuel.”“We’ve been through a lot in the last few years,” he said. “I think that people really are looking at life a little differently.
In National City, Kean-Ayub said that residents want the boldness that Sotelo-Solis brought as mayor, particularly in giving the small city a strong voice on a regional scale, but the race turned highly contentious between her and Rodriguez.
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