Tuesday’s election could say a lot about the future of San Diego’s once-powerful Republican-business coalition.
Sweeping electoral tea-leaf reading always comes with caveats, and this one has many. Nevertheless, certain results could suggest new life for the GOP-business influence, or its continued downward spiral toward irrelevance. The GOP has a lot riding on Faulconer. Locally and statewide, influential party figures are hoping he shows a Republican can win in certain Democratic enclaves. He did that before as mayor.
District 3 is heavily Democratic, and coastal communities in general tend to be center-left to very left, certainly since the beginning of the Trump era. And he has attracted millions of dollars in campaign support that likely wouldn’t go to a lower-profile candidate . Still, he’s the incumbent who won a resounding victory in 2020 with broad labor and business backing, much of which is still on his team — along with, significantly, the San Diego Police Officers Association. Turner, a San Diego police officer, advanced out of the primary with little public profile. His campaign resources were fit for a pauper.