MONTGOMERY STEPPE LEADS SUPERVISOR RACE
San Diego City Council member running against Reichert to fill Fletcher’s seat
Hours after the polls closed in the special election for county supervisor, Democrat Monica Montgomery Steppe held a wide lead over her Republican opponent Amy Reichert, based on partial election results released late Tuesday evening.
But with thousands of ballots still to be counted, the outcome of the race for the vacant seat representing District 4 will not be decided for days or weeks.
The nearly 700,000 residents of the heavily Democratic district, which stretches from Clairemont to Spring Valley, have not had a supervisor since Nathan Fletcher resigned in May following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Following an August primary, voters were choosing between Montgomery Steppe, who serves on the San Diego City Council, and Reichert, a ReOpen San Diego leader who had challenged Fletcher last year.
At stake are not only the District 4 seat but also control of the five-member Board of Supervisors, which is split between two Democrats and two Republicans.
At a gathering of Montgomery Steppe and her supporters Tuesday night, a cheer erupted as the first election results were displayed, and a chant for “Monica” began.
“We’re celebrating tonight, but when we go home tonight, we will see someone sleeping on the street,” she later told the crowd assembled at UDW Hall.
“It’s time for us to move forward. It’s time to for us to create a quality of life for every single person who wants to live here and who wants to thrive here. And it’s time to center the people in the policies and in the culture and in the bureaucracy.”
She added afterward that she was eager to get to work if elected supervisor, and to figure out which county policies are working and which aren’t and making a plan to fix them. “I’ll be working
to earn the trust of the people,” she said.
Across town, Reichert noted the uphill battle she faced in a heavily Democratic district.
“I never even thought that I would be running for office this year — it’s not even an election year,” she said ahead of the first release of results.
Later in the evening, she was all smiles as she embraced friends, family and constituents at her campaign’s watch party in a private room at Bully’s East Prime Bistro Sports Bar in Mission Valley.
“I ran a race that I believe has completely stayed away from partisanship,” she added.
The preliminary results published late Tuesday included mail ballots received before Election Day, as well as returns from in-person voting. Election officials expect to give their next update Thursday.
Processing all the ballots may be more complicated in this special election, after election officials alerted nearly 7,500 voters last month that they may have mistakenly been mailed two ballots.
Officials suspended the duplicate ballot, notified voters and told them to return either ballot and destroy the other.
If a voter returns a suspended ballot, it will be set aside and then manually counted only if it is the only ballot that the voter returned.
Under California law, the county registrar of voters has 30 days to certify election results, but Shawn Brom, the assistant registrar, said the process is expected to conclude sooner this year.
Whoever is elected will be sworn in by early next month and serve through January 2027.
Brom said in-person turnout was noticeably higher than it had been during early in-person voting.
His office used its timetracking system to monitor activity at vote centers. Throughout the voting period, facilities did not have lines, and people were able to get in and out quickly, Brom said.
Voting by mail remained the overwhelming choice of San Diego County voters, however.
As of late Tuesday, more than 77,000 mail ballots had been counted in the District 4 race, compared with just under 2,200 ballots cast in person.
On Election Day, at the vote center in the Skyline Hills Library in Montgomery Steppe’s council district, those voting seemed excited.
As a Black woman, Fannie Wilson said she takes her civic duty seriously and dutifully researches each candidate.
“Every chance I get, I’m voting,” she said. “My ancestors fought for me to vote, so I’m going to vote.”
Mother and daughter Oreta and Shayla Jacobs had gone to vote together at lunchtime. “I’m hopeful that who we voted for will prevail,” Shayla said.
In La Mesa, a handful of young, first-time voters started their day by visiting the vote center at the United Church of Christ.
And in Old Town, two 18year-old voters sporting their “I voted” stickers treated themselves to ice cream after voting at Father Junipero Hall that afternoon.
“We just missed the cutoff to vote last year, so we were excited to do it this year, even though there was only one person on the ballot,” Emma Palmer said.