Marni von Wilpert, a Democratic member of the San Diego City Council, will advance to the November election in a competitive San Diego-area House race, according to The Associated Press. Her victory in Tuesday\u2019s \u201ctop two\u201d primary eliminated Democrats\u2019 fears that two Republicans would compete in November.<\/p>\n
Ms. von Wilpert will face Jim Desmond, a Republican county supervisor, according to The A.P., in a district that President Trump lost by less than 4 percentage points in 2024.<\/p>\n
Several prominent Democrats, including former Senator Barbara Boxer, had openly worried that Ms. von Wilpert\u2019s fierce rivalry with another Democratic candidate, Ammar Campa-Najjar, would allow two Republicans to advance in the 48th District race, shutting the party out altogether.<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s boundaries, which include parts of inland San Diego and Riverside Counties, shifted last year to slightly favor Democrats. The previous district had long been a Republican stronghold.<\/p>\n
This is the third time that Mr. Campa-Najjar has lost a bid for Congress.<\/p>\n
This primary fight was particularly bitter, as Mr. Campa-Najjar accused Ms. von Wilpert of racism and Islamophobia, while she accused him of homophobia. Mr. Campa-Najjar also faced scrutiny over issues where he had portrayed himself as more of a centrist during his previous elections. For example, he had previously said that he was against banning \u201cso-called assault weapons,\u201d but this year said he would favor stricter gun-control laws.<\/p>\n
He was also criticized because a super PAC funded by the family of his girlfriend, Representative Sara Jacobs, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, spent more than $1 million supporting his campaign.<\/p>\n
Darrell Issa, a Republican, represented the San Diego area for decades under the previous boundaries of the 48th Congressional District. He temporarily retired in 2018 when he feared a Democratic wave, but was then elected again in 2020. This year, Democrats redrew the district and eliminated several wealthy cities in Orange County and instead brought in parts of the Coachella Valley, a desert area east of San Diego with a large number of blue-collar and Latino voters. As a result, Mr. Issa decided not to run for re-election.<\/p>\n
Mr. Desmond had the backing of Mr. Issa and President Trump. Throughout the campaign, Mr. Desmond emphasized his alliance with the Trump administration, saying he supported the war in Iran and the effort to end birthright citizenship.<\/p>\n
Ms. von Wilpert campaigned as the moderate choice, emphasizing public safety while also saying she would expand bargaining rights for labor unions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marni von Wilpert, a Democratic member of the San Diego City Council, will advance to the November election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[141591,1525,989,11272,86842,15180,74,134958,76,75,4510],"class_list":["post-344650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-coachella-valley-calif","tag-democratic-party","tag-elections","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-republican-party","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-calif","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}