The two Democrats battling to represent San Diego\u2019s South Bay neighborhoods on the City Council have both notched key endorsements since they finished first and second in the June primary.<\/p>\n
Antonio Martinez, a San Ysidro school board member, was endorsed by the county Democratic Party and the fourth-place finisher in the June primary, realtor Rafael Perez.<\/p>\n
Gerardo Ramirez, chief of staff to the area\u2019s incumbent Councilmember Vivian Moreno, was endorsed by the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Building Industry Association and a large construction labor union.<\/p>\n
Martinez finished first in June with 5,375 votes and Ramirez second with 4,636, narrowly beating third-place finisher Venus Molina \u2014 who had 4,334 votes \u2014 for the second slot in the Nov. 3 runoff.<\/p>\n
Molina, also a Democrat, said this week that she doesn\u2019t plan to endorse either Martinez or Ramirez in the runoff for District 8, which includes Sherman Heights, Logan Heights, Otay Mesa, San Ysidro and some nearby areas.<\/p>\n
Martinez said he was proud to get the party endorsement, which he also received the last time the seat was open in 2018. He lost a tight race that year to Moreno, who got the party\u2019s endorsement for their 2022 rematch.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s also pleased to have support from Perez, another Democrat, who pulled 3,336 votes in fourth place.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis support sends a powerful message,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cThis campaign is about more than one candidate. It\u2019s about uniting leaders, neighborhood voices and advocates who are committed to delivering results for the families of District 8.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramirez said the party\u2019s endorsement of Martinez was not a surprise, based on its decision to endorse him in 2018.<\/p>\n
He said his goal is to build a different kind of coalition and that he\u2019s proud to have both labor leaders and the business community behind him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t usually support the same candidate, and that speaks to our independence,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cDistrict 8 needs new ideas and a new generation of leadership. That\u2019s why they\u2019re backing our campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
The construction union that endorsed him recently is Local 89 of the Laborers\u2019 International Union of North America, which has roughly 5,000 members in the San Diego region.<\/p>\n
Ramirez was also backed in the primary by the city\u2019s largest labor union \u2014 the Municipal Employees Association \u2014 as well as the union representing city police officers and the city\u2019s blue-collar worker union, local 127 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.<\/p>\n
Martinez was endorsed by the city\u2019s firefighters union and Unite Here Local 30, a union representing 7,500 hospitality workers in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two Democrats battling to represent San Diego\u2019s South Bay neighborhoods on the City Council have both notched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,23,205,100,13,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-429213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429213","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=429213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}