TWO FACE OFF IN 39TH SENATE DISTRICT
Incumbent Atkins, GOP newcomer to vie for seat in Nov.
On paper, the race to represent the 39th District in the California Senate for the next four years appears to be a mismatch — a classic confrontation between a powerful political insider and an all but unknown newcomer with little more than ambition.
But L inda Dealy Blankenship, a Carmel Valley homemaker who worked her way into the November runoff as a write-in candidate in the March primar y, is undaunted by the challenge of tr ying to topple popular San Diego Democrat Sen. Toni Atkins.
“The Democratic Par ty in California and Ms. Atkins being the second most powerful person i n state government — you can’t compete with that,” Blankenship said in a telephone inter view. “So you have to be clever.”
The Republican candidate said she is relying on technolog y to help spread her message of smar ter government that better represents constituents.
“We have an alternative mode for running a campaign,” she said. “We’re doing a lot of targeted email. I’m getting up to speed on social media. My oldest g randdaughter had to teach me how to go on Instagram. Now she calls me Insta-grammy.”
Blankenship, who worked for political campaig ns for years but never
held elective off ice, said Sacramento politicians too of ten work to benef it special interests rather than reg ular voters.
As one example, she cited Assembly Bill 5, the controversial 2019 leg islation that reclassif ied independent contractors as employees. She also criticized the state’s handling of COVID-19 for being too restrictive in some places and less focused in others.
“The whole structure seems to wiggle from month to month,” she said. “Common sense would seem to say you shelter and protect vulnerable people but allow the healthy people to go about their lives.”
Blankenship, who was born 66 years ago in Hinesville, Ga., said she did not want Atkins to be reelected without at least offering voters an alternative.
So she l aunched the March write-in campaig n that ultimately won more than 18,000 votes — barely 8 percent of the turnout against the nearly 92 percent collected by Atkins, but good enough to make the Nov. 3 ballot.
“I had no illusions, but I really thought voters i n the 39th District needed to have a choice. They deser ve a choice,” she said. “I’m a citizen of the United States and I’ve been a resident of the district since the early 1960s.
“I g rew up here, raised my children here and I care about the culture that we live in,” she said.
Atkins is a former San Diego City Council member who was selected by her peers to ser ve as acting mayor f ollowing the sudden resig nation of then-Mayor Dick Murphy.
The emergency council vote i n July 2005 made Atkins the f irst openly lesbian mayor of San Diego, a political feat she matched af ter she was elected to the statehouse in 2010 and rose to become speaker of the Assembly — the f irst ever from San Diego.
Atkins, who was born in rural Virg inia and turned 58 in Aug ust, also became the f irst woman and LGBTQ community member to ever lead the state Senate two years ago.
The powerful Democrat said she relishes the work and has much more to accomplish, such as building on the success she had l ast year delivering millions of dollars to San Diego to invest in Balboa Park, L iber ty Station and other public assets.
But that will be diff icult in a state budget climate that was decimated by the pandemic and turned a $26 billion surplus into a $54 billion def icit, she said.
“I’m proud we were able to close out the year without sig nif icant cuts in ser vices and healthcare,” she said in a phone interview. “I’m holding out hope for a federal stimulus because we still have unemployment issues. The benef its are running out for millions and millions of people.”
Atkins said she also has unf inished business in the areas of housing, climate change, education and wildf ire prevention. The incumbent Senate president lives in South Park and is married to development consultant Jennifer L aSar.
Much of Atkins’ leg islative agenda was handcuffed this year by the coronavirus, which slowed prog ress on many bills by forcing the work to be done remotely, she said.
“I want to bring those measures back and work on those next year,” said Atklins.“There’s always so much to do.”
Atkins has far more suppor t than her November rival, accepting contributions from political donors representing vir tually every sector of the California economy.
She repor ted almost $400,000 in contributions so far this year and has almost $1.6 million in cash on hand, according to campaig n f inance disclosures submitted to the California Secretar y of State’s Off ice late last month.
Blankenship raised just over $30,000 in contributions this year and repor ted $23,000 cash on hand as of Sept. 22.
Even beyond the whopping discrepancy in fundraising, Mesa College political science professor Carl Luna doesn’t g ive the challenger much chance of winning.
“The Republicans are geog raphically isolated,” Luna said. “The f ar ther east in the county, the better they do. But in a district like the 39th, with a successful, entrenched incumbent, it doesn’t matter what situation, incumbents just don’t go down without extreme scandal.”
L ike all California Senate districts, the 39th District represents nearly 1 million people. The district runs from Solana Beach east to San Pasqual Valley and south to most of San Diego and Coronado.