North County Report: Election Races We’re Watching This Year 

2026 will be a pivotal year for politics, not just nationally, but also locally.  

Key seats on the County Board of Supervisors, the 48th Congressional District and the 40th Senate District are up for grabs, and several North County elected officials have thrown their hats in the ring. 

That also means vacancies for a few mayoral and City Council seats that will need to be filled. 

With the June Primary Election just months away, here are the races we’re watching in North County. 

The Race for County Supervisor 

Two North County Republican mayors—Vista Mayor John Franklin and San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones—are running for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors District 5 seat. County Supervisor Jim Desmond is termed out.   

District 5 includes Escondido, Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, Camp Pendleton and other northern communities. The district leans Democrat with 143,500 registered Democrats and roughly 129,000 registered Republicans. It also has a large Hispanic population.  

Mayor Franklin has served on the Vista City Council since 2014 and as mayor since 2022. His decision to run for supervisor and not for a second mayoral term means Vista will need to elect a new mayor. 

Mayor Jones has served on the San Marcos City Council since 2007 and as mayor since 2018. Her run for supervisor means San Marcos will also elect a new mayor this year.  

Kyle Krahel-Frolander, a staffer for Rep. Mike Levin and former chair of the local Democratic Party, is the only Democrat running for the supervisor seat. 

What’s at stake: If Krahel-Frolander wins, the Board of Supervisors will secure its first-ever Democratic supermajority as four out of five supervisors would be Democrats. And with four votes, Democrats would have the power to steer the County’s budget without needing Republican support. 

The mayoral races: In San Marcos, former District 3 Councilmember Sharon Jenkins and current District 2 Councilmember Mike Sannella have announced their run for mayor. And in Vista, former District 2 City Councilmember Joe Green is, so far, the only candidate running for the mayoral seat. 

The 48th Congressional District 

After California voters passed Proposition 50 —a sweeping redistricting measure — in November, the race for the 48th Congressional seat got a lot more interesting. 

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa will face off against a slew of Democratic candidates. Those include San Diego City Councilmember Marni Von Wilpert, former Barack Obama staffer Brandon Riker and Ammar Campa-Najjar (who lost to Issa in 2020). Vista District 1 Councilmember Corinna Contreras is the latest Democrat to announce her bid for the seat. 

And because of Proposition 50, Democrats have a pretty good chance of flipping it. 

Proposition 50 allowed a redraw of congressional political boundaries to create five additional Democratic-leaning seats, a move Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed in response to efforts by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Trump administration to add more Republican seats in Texas.  

Before the change, the 48th District included Bonsall, Poway, Santee, Fallbrook, portions of Escondido, Romona and Temecula. The new map will bring in Vista, parts of Oceanside and portions of Palm Springs while cutting out Poway, Romona, Santee and Lakeside.   

Now that Proposition 50 has passed, voter registration in the 48th will strongly favor Democrats, which will make Issa’s re-election bid this year much tougher.  

What’s at stake: Both California’s and Texas’ redistricting efforts are tied up in litigation, but if California’s Proposition 50 remains and Issa loses his reelection bid, San Diego will lose its only Republican in Congress. 

The 40th Senate District 

In San Diego’s 40th Senate District, San Marcos District 4 City Councilmember Ed Musgrove and former state Assembly candidate Kristie Bruce-Lane, both Republicans, have announced campaigns for the seat, along with San Diego Unified School District Board Trustee Sabrina Bazzo, a Democrat and former San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott, who has not declared a party affiliation, but is endorsed by multiple Democrats. 

Republican Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones is termed out. 

The 40th Senate District covers San Marcos, Escondido, Valley Center, Santee, Poway, Scripps Ranch, Sorrento Valley, Ramona, Alpine and several inland unincorporated areas.  

San Diego Councilmember Von Wilpert was also running for the seat before dropping out and entering the 48th Congressional race. 

What’s at stake: Jones is the highest-ranking Republican in California state government and has held the seat since 2022.  

The 40th was traditionally a Democratic stronghold before redistricting in 2020 shifted the area to lean more Republican, so it will be interesting to see how the race shapes out. 

Note: Some of the candidates listed in these races have not yet filed their campaign paperwork, but the filing deadlines run from February through March, according to the California Secretary of State’s website. 

Around Town: ICE Arrests Continue to Increase Compared to Last Year 

Arrests made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in 2025 continued to outpace arrests made in 2024, data shows, including in North County. 

The Deportation Data Project recently compiled new data for ICE arrests in 2025, and I took a look at what those numbers are showing in North County cities. I previously wrote about ICE arrest data for the first six months of 2025—now, numbers are available through the first 10 months of 2025 (through mid-October). 

What the data shows: There were more arrests made by ICE officials in almost every single North County city in 2025 compared to 2024, with some cities seeing arrests more than double. 

Escondido saw the highest number of ICE arrests, according to the data, followed by Oceanside, Vista and San Marcos. 

And when viewed by month, there were more arrests each month from Jan. 1 to Oct. 15 of 2025 than there were during those same months in 2024.  

The increase in ICE arrests stems from the Trump administration’s push for mass deportations, which officially began last January. Since then, arrests have become more frequent and, at times, have involved greater use of force. 

Recently, residents in North County and across San Diego County held demonstrations protesting recent shootings by ICE officers, including the deadly shooting of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.  

In Other News 

• ICYMI: A recent audit of homeless serving nonprofit Solutions for Change shows multiple unapproved withdrawals from the organization’s reserves in 2023 and 2024 that went against county and state regulations and were supposed to be used for affordable housing projects. (Voice of San Diego) 
• Former Poway City Councilmember Tony Blain pleaded not guilty at his court arraignment on Monday. He’s accused of perjury, soliciting a bribe, destruction of public documents and misdemeanor petty theft. (Union-Tribune) Related: Poway will hold a special election to fill Blain’s former District 2 seat this June. (KPBS) 
• Del Mar City Councilmember Terry Gaasterland is refusing to give up her seat as the primary representative for the city of Del Mar on the SANDAG board of directors to give another representative a chance to serve on the board. She’s held the seat for the past five years. (Coast News) 
• Congress has approved a $26 million grant for a flood control project for the San Luis Rey River in Oceanside. The project will repair the river’s levee system and remove sediment from the river channel. (Coast News) 

The post North County Report: Election Races We’re Watching This Year  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.