Richard Bailey and Nicole Crosby were leading the pack in San Diego Council District 2 in early election results just after the polls closed Tuesday, while Antonio Martinez and Gerardo Ramirez held the crucial top two spots in Council District 8.
With only partial results reported and many votes still left to be counted in all races, Martha Abraham and Henry Foster were leading in District 4, while Kent Lee and Mark Powell held the top two spots in District 6.
In San Diego council races, the top two finishers in the June primary advance to a November runoff even if the first-place candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.
Bailey, the former mayor of Coronado and the most conservative candidate in the District 2 race, flooded voters with mailers in recent weeks criticizing what he calls mismanagement at Democrat-led San Diego City Hall.
Crosby, a deputy city attorney endorsed by the county Democratic Party, has sent mailers contending Bailey’s promises to reduce city spending would slash funding for parks, libraries and homeless shelters.
The third-place candidate in early results was Democrat Josh Coyne, a former City Hall staffer who now helps lead a merchant organization called the Downtown San Diego Partnership.
Bailey, Crosby and Coyne, along with independent committees supporting them, have raised and spent far more than the four other candidates: Mandy Havlik, Michael Rickey, Paul Suppa and Jacob Mitchell.
Bailey has been supported mostly by local business groups. Crosby has gotten support from the city’s largest labor union, while Coyne got support from a construction union.
If Bailey makes the November runoff, the race is likely to be an old-fashioned ideological left-versus-right battle. While not affiliated with any party, he’s a former Republican, and his views on most issues are notably conservative.
Local labor unions recently launched a major push against Bailey with significant funding and mailers.
Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 in the district, which includes Point Loma, Clairemont, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach and some nearby areas.
In the District 8 race, where all four candidates are Democrats, Ramirez is a City Hall insider while Martinez is more of an outsider.
Ramirez is chief of staff for Vivian Moreno, who has held the seat since 2018 and can’t run for re-election because of term limits. Martinez is a longtime San Ysidro schools trustee who ran unsuccessfully against Moreno in 2018 and 2022.
The two candidates have split support among organized labor, with Martinez getting support from local hotel workers and city firefighters while Ramirez got support from the union representing most other city workers.
Ramirez has also gotten significant support from the Latino Caucus of California Counties, a statewide organization.
The two other candidates in the District 8 race are Venus Molina, who is chief of staff for termed-out District 2 Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, and real estate agent Rafael Perez.
Molina got support from an independent committee sponsored by the Sycuan tribe, the YIMBY Democrats and the Singleton Schreiber law firm.
Perez received support from an independent committee sponsored by the local guild of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Association of Realtors.
Martinez lives in San Ysidro, Ramirez in Otay Mesa, Molina in Ocean View Hills and Perez in Sherman Heights. District 8 also includes Logan Heights.
In District 4, challenger Martha Abraham was leading incumbent Henry Foster. But both Democrats were comfortably ahead of the only other candidate in the race, independent Johnny Lee Dang.
District 4 includes Encanto, Skyline and several other neighborhoods in southeastern San Diego.
In District 6, it’s been known since candidate filing closed that Lee and Powell were headed for a November runoff because they are the only two candidates in the race — barring a successful write-in effort.
In early results, Lee was leading Powell by a comfortable margin. District 6 includes Mira Mesa and University City.