50TH RACE IS TIGHT; JACOBS WINS SEAT
Early results show big margin; council president concedes
49th District: Democratic Rep. Mark Levin leads Republican Brian Maryott.
50th District: Democrat Ammar Campa- Najjar takes slight lead over Republican Darrell Issa.
51st District: Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas leads Republican Juan Hidalgo. 52nd District: Democratic Rep. Scott Peters leads Republican Jim DeBello. 53rd District: Democrat Sara Jacobs defeats Democrat Georgette Gómez.
Democrat Sara Jacobs, 31, will be the next member of the San Diego cong ressional delegation af ter defeating City Council President Georgette Gómez in the race to replace retiring 10-term Rep. Susan Davis in the 53rd District.
Early results released by the San Diego County Reg istrar of Voters show Jacobs leading Gómez. The results, published at 8 p.m. Tuesday, included mail-in ballots that arrived before Election Day and some in-person early votes.
In a statement on Twitter l ate Tuesday, Gómez conceded.
“As the votes here i n San Diego continue being counted, the results of the election do not seem to be what we all hoped for,” Gómez wrote. “Tonight’s results do not def ine my commitment to building a more just society.”
In a victor y speech late Tuesday, Jacobs said she represents a new generation of leaders.
“Today, the voters i n this district made a clear choice ... to empower a new generation of leaders,” Jacobs said. “I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get to it.”
Gómez, f irst elected to the City Council in 2016, decided not to run for that seat as an incumbent and to instead pursue the cong ressional seat being vacated by Susan Davis.
The decision did not appear risky i n 2019 when Gómez announced her run — she was endorsed by the local and state Democratic par ty, 51st District Rep. Juan Vargas and the stars of the prog ressive wing of the par ty, Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cor tez, D-N.Y.
However, Gómez, 44, met a formidable opponent in Jacobs. This is the second run for Cong ress for Jacobs, g randdaughter of billionaire Qualcomm cofounder Ir win Jacobs. She ran in the 49th District in 2018 but came in third in the primary.
Before running for off ice, Jacobs worked as a State Depar tment contractor and at the United Nations and UNICEF. She also founded a nonprof it that measures Internet access at schools around the world i n an effor t to i ncrease connectivity.
Gómez’s campaig n focused on her backg round and identity as a gay L atina. Comparing herself to Jacobs, the largely selffunded heiress of the Qualcomm for tune, Gómez sought to establish herself as a grassroots, community-focused candidate. I n attack ads, her campaig n accused Jacobs of suppor ting Trump’s corporate tax cuts and of lacking g rassroots suppor t.
Jacobs’ campaign off icials explained its lack of donors — it stopped fundraising altogether during the early days of the pandemic.
“In recent months, because COVID-19 is still ver y much a reality and f ederal relief has long since disappeared, we’ve continued to view fundraising as our last priority,” said Morgan Hill, a spokeswoman for the Jacobs campaig n, told the Union-Tribune last month.
Gómez f inished second in the March primar y about 20,000 votes behind Jacobs. In more recent polls, she continued to trail Jacobs by double dig its.
In September, Gómez released three years of her tax returns and called on Jacobs to do the same. Upon review, the Union-Tribune found several discrepancies in those returns, including that Gómez failed to repor t her entire City Council salary to the IRS in 2017. Gómez said her accountant was responsible and f iled an amended return.
In mid-October, a super PAC backing Jacobs and funded exclusively by her grandparents began airing ads against Gómez, the f irst attack ads against her of the campaig n. The ads claimed Gómez “changed her position” on a 2019 inclusionar y housing ordinance af ter taking “big money” from real estate developers and lobbyists.
Gómez rewrote the ordinance to win over holdouts on the council af ter Mayor Kevin Faulconer vetoed the orig inal one.