November 8, 2016 (2016-11-08) 2018 → 5 4 | 5 4 Date 8 November 2016 | |
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Location San Diego, California, United States | ||
The 2016 San Diego City Council election occurred on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The primary election was held on Tuesday, June 7, 2016. Five of the nine seats were contested. Two incumbents ran for reelection.
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Municipal elections in California are officially non-partisan, although most members do identify a party preference. A two-round system was used for the election, starting with a primary in June followed by a runoff in November between the top-two candidates if no candidate received a majority of the votes in the first round.
Campaign
Seats in districts 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 were up for election. Sherri Lightner (District 1) and Todd Gloria (District 3) were ineligible to run for re-election due to term limits. Incumbent Marti Emerald (District 9) chose not to seek reelection.
Republicans hoped to overturn the Democratic Party's 5–4 majority by flipping District 1 from Democratic to Republican.
District 1
District 1 consists of the communities of Carmel Valley, Del Mar Mesa, Del Mar Heights, La Jolla, Pacific Highlands Ranch, Torrey Hills, Torrey Pines, and University City. Incumbent Sherri Lightner was ineligible to run due to term limits. Republican Ray Ellis and Democrats Barbara Bry and Joe LaCava were expected to run to replace Lightner. In January 2016, LaCava announced that he had decided not to run. In March 2016, Bruce Lightner, husband to the incumbent Sherri Lightner, and Kyle Heiskala, a policy advisor on Sherri Lightner's City Council staff, pulled papers to run for the District 1 seat.
Since no candidate received a majority of the votes in the June primary, Bry and Ellis were slated to advance to the November runoff election. However, on August 12, 2016 Ellis announced that he would be withdrawing from the election. Despite effectively conceding the race, Ellis's name still appeared on November ballot. Bry was then elected to the City Council in November.
District 3
District 3 consists of the communities of Balboa Park, Bankers Hill/Park West, Downtown San Diego, Golden Hill, Hillcrest, Little Italy, Mission Hills, Normal Heights, North Park, Old Town, South Park, and University Heights. Incumbent Todd Gloria was ineligible to run due to term limits. Chris Ward was elected in the June primary with a majority of the vote.
District 5
District 5 consists of the neighborhoods of Black Mountain Ranch, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Miramar, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Encantada, Rancho Peñasquitos, Sabre Springs, San Pasqual Valley, Scripps Ranch, and Torrey Highlands. Incumbent Mark Kersey was initially expected to run unopposed, but ultimately faced two opponents to his reelection. Kersey was reelected in the June primary with a majority of the vote.
District 7
District 7 consists of the neighborhoods of Allied Gardens, Del Cerro, Grantville, Linda Vista, Mission Valley, San Carlos, Serra Mesa, and Tierrasanta. Incumbent Scott Sherman filed to run for reelection. Sherman was reelected in the June primary with a majority of the vote.
District 9
District 9 consists of the communities of Alvarado Estates, City Heights, College Area, College View Estates, El Cerrito, Kensington, Mountain View, Mount Hope, Rolando, Southcrest, and Talmadge. Incumbent Marti Emerald chose not to seek reelection. Since no candidate received a majority of the votes in the June primary, a runoff election was held in November 2016 between Ricardo Flores and Georgette Gomez. Gomez was then elected to the City Council in November.
Aftermath
On December 12, 2016, the new council was sworn in. For their first action, the council voted 6–3 to appoint Myrtle Cole as council president. David Alvarez, who was considered the other main candidate for the position, was joined in opposition to Cole's appointment by newly sworn in council members Ward and Gomez. Although both Alvarez and Cole were Democrats, Cole was seen as more moderate or centrist than Alvarez.