Politics Report: 2026 Predictions

The thing about predictions is nobody expects you to get them right. If you make a bold one and you get it wrong, you can often get away with nobody even remembering. (Not that I know from experience.) If you get one right, though, you can point to it and you look clairvoyant.

This year, I reached out to 20 local political insiders and observers and asked for their predictions for the New Year with the freedom to put them out anonymously. I removed some of the meaner ones and some of the more random ones.

I’ve tried to group them by topic but some will just sprinkle in.

Finally, I obviously didn’t get a representative sample of San Diego. I didn’t even get a representative sample of you, you intelligent readers of the most popular often-weekly political newsletter in San Diego, the Politics Report. So please share your own predictions for 2026 and I’ll run the best, not-mean ones.

Local Money Measures

Trash fee is repealed.

Neither citizen tax measure qualifies for November ballot.

Both the city and county sales tax measures fail and the trash fee is repealed. It’s a budget apocalypse for the city.

Citizens’ initiative for the county of San Diego (half-cent sales tax increase) will be successful providing money for Tijuana Sewage, health care, child care.

Citizen initiative for city of San Diego (1-cent sales tax increase) will not be successful.

Both the SEIU/county half-cent sales tax measure and the Laborers/city 1-cent sales tax measure fail to make it on the ballot for lack of required signatures.

Second-home bedroom tax will be on June ballot and will pass.

Sean Elo-Rivera‘s empty home/short-term vacation rental tax makes it onto the ballot on a 5-4 City Council vote, and is approved by a similarly narrow margin by the voters in June.

Most revenue measures will fail, but SD Unified bonds will sail to approval and the empty second homes tax will pass because people agree: The wealthy should pay their fair share.

La Jolla cityhood and trash fee repeal will get real AF.

La Jolla breakaway fails.

Bold Speech Prediction

The State of the City will be declared as “lacking rizz.”

Electoral Politics

The elections for open seats in San Diego City Council Districts 2 and 8 are close, competitive, and expensive. The re-elections in Council Districts 4 and 6 – despite all the bellyaching about the city – are not competitive and not close.

Richard Bailey wins D2 City Council seat.

Darrell Issa will not run for re-election.

Darrell Issa gets an appointment, doesn’t run for Congress. Desmond becomes the nominee in CA-48.

Ammar Campa-Najjar and Jim Desmond (switching districts) will be top two Congressional candidates for District 48.

Ammar Campa-Najjar will be our new Congressional representative.

Ammar Campa-Najjar will lose his fourth political campaign.

Carl DeMaio will pull papers for State Senate District 40 right before the deadline and challenge Republican Ed Musgrove. I think he’s already made a deal with Kristie Bruce Lane, the other Republican in the race & KBL will then pull papers to run for his vacated Assembly seat.

Eric Swalwell & Chad Bianca will be top two gov candidates after June primary.

Eric Swalwell will be our next governor.

After every elected Democrat in Chula Vista declines to challenge John McCann, a relatively unknown candidate will run for mayor and win in November’s blue wave.

Cody Petterson runs for something other than Board of Equalization.

Midway May Rise

Midway Rising will break ground.

Midway Rising dies.

The Midway height limit measure will be passed a third time by voters (and nothing will change).

Policy

San Diego becomes a hotspot for the national AI vs. worker debate.

City Council backtracks on Balboa Park paid parking.

New location for City Hall will be agreed upon. City Core 7 blocks (including California Theatre & adjacent half block will be agreed upon).

Mayor Todd Gloria decides it is in the best interest of the city to hire a chief operating officer.

In an innovative city cost saving measure, Todd Gloria will appoint himself fire chief.

Todd WILL hire a COO.

SANDAG doesn’t decide anything about the Del Mar tunnel.

Following its declaration that housing is a human right, the City Council will bravely declare that free parking is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Rents fall fairly dramatically and housing affordability is off the table as a major issue by end of the year.  

San Diego stops flying under Trump’s radar.

The flood victims lawsuit results in largest ever settlement against the city, collectively.

Note

Not a ‘cult’ member: I interviewed Amy Reichert, the former candidate for county supervisor with the large social media following and a place in the leadership of the Republican Party of San Diego County. Most of the reactions I’ve gotten have been something like this one: “Wanted to thank you for the interview with Amy R, to which I initially had this reaction: ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! Giving that person a platform.’ … But I ended up finding the discussion fascinating.”

Let me know what you think and who else we should have on in 2026.

If you have any predictions, ideas or other feedback for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voieofsandiego.org.

The post Politics Report: 2026 Predictions appeared first on Voice of San Diego.