Democrats win seat on County Board of Supervisors

SAN DIEGO - The technically nonpartisan San Diego County Board of Supervisors will have a Democratic member for just the second time in three decades.

District 4 Democratic candidate Nathan Fletcher easily defeated Republican Bonnie Dumanis in Tuesday's election.

Democrat and legislative analyst Michelle Gomez did not fare as well in District 5, where San Marcos Mayor Jim Desmond won handily.

The two open seats on the board were the result of termed-out supervisors Ron Roberts and Bill Horn. Roberts and Horn are the first supervisors to be termed out of office as a result of San Diego County's Measure B, which was passed in 2010. The measure established a limit of two eight-year terms for supervisors, with the five supervisors at that time being grandfathered in. District 1 Supervisor Greg Cox and District 2 Supervisor Dianne Jacob will be termed out in 2020.

Fletcher, then a Republican, served in the Assembly from 2008 to 2012, choosing to run for San Diego mayor in 2012 in lieu of running for re-election. After changing his party affiliation to Independent, Fletcher finished third in the 2012 mayoral primary to Carl DeMaio and eventual election winner Bob Filner. Fletcher finished with 24.1 percent of the vote.

Dumanis was San Diego County's district attorney from 2003 to 2017, becoming the first openly gay prosecutor in the country and the first woman to serve as DA in the county's history. She also ran for mayor in 2012, finishing fourth behind Fletcher with 13.3 percent of the vote. Dumanis would go on to endorse DeMaio in the general election.

Desmond fell roughly five points short of 50 percent during the primary election, which would have given him the win outright. Instead, he faced Gomez, who netted 22.9 percent during the primary.

Desmond has served as San Marcos mayor for 12 years. Prior to taking mayoral office in 2006, Desmond was a San Marcos City Councilman. He was endorsed by the San Diego County Republican Party and serves on the boards of directors for the San Diego Association of Governments, San Diego International Airport, San Diego County Economic Development Corporation and San Diego and Imperial County Boy Scouts of America.

Gomez sits on the San Diego County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls and the Oceanside Housing Commission, in addition to her work as a legislative analyst. She received endorsements from the San Diego County Democratic Party and the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council.