South County Report: South County Decided

South San Diego County is back – in county government, that is. 

Voters on Tuesday chose Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre as our region’s next county supervisor. 

Aguirre, a Democrat, will replace former South County Supervisor Nora Vargas, who resigned unexpectedly late last year. 

Alongside the county’s four other supervisors, Aguirre now will help steer a government bureaucracy of roughly 20,000 employees and an $8.6 billion budget that pays for services ranging from health care, to transportation, to housing, to law enforcement. 

“I feel elated and humbled and ready to get to work,” Aguirre said in a post-election interview. 

What happens next: Aguirre said she’ll be sworn in on July 22. That same day, she’ll resign as Imperial Beach mayor, leaving a vacancy on her hometown’s City Council. 

Imperial Beach City Councilmember Mitch McKay said councilmembers likely would decide how to replace Aguirre at their next scheduled meeting in early August, following a traditional July recess. 

“We have 60 days to appoint someone to finish out the mayor’s term, which goes through November 2026,” McKay said. “If we don’t appoint someone, there would be a special election.” 

McKay said councilmembers likely would seek to replace Aguirre via appointment because special elections “are quite expensive and most small cities don’t like to have to fork out a couple hundred thousand dollars for a position only open for a few months.” 

“I think our Council gets along well enough that we could come to consensus, and I don’t think it will be contentious,” McKay said. 

Until a new mayor is appointed, Deputy Mayor Carol Seabury will serve as acting city leader, McKay said. If a sitting city councilmember is appointed to Aguirre’s job, the Council also would have to fill that councilmember’s job, likely by appointment. 

In other words, now is a good time to be an aspiring Imperial Beach politico. 

What it all means: Aguirre’s win returns county government to Democratic control after seven months of partisan deadlock on the Board of Supervisors. 

But her win by no means represents an overwhelming Democratic mandate in a region where politics are complex and vary neighborhood by neighborhood. 

Aguirre’s opponent, Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, a Republican, came just four percentage points shy of gaining a majority of votes even though Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one in supervisorial District 1. 

With wide name recognition in the region’s largest city, a moderate pro-business record and a palpable love of his Chula Vista hometown, McCann in many ways was in tune with the aspirations of district residents. 

He expressed confidence at the start of the race that he could prevail in a Democratic-majority district for the simple reason that he’d won six previous elections in Chula Vista, where Democrats outnumber Republicans. 

“We are going to run a fierce campaign supporting our working-class citizens in South County,” McCann said in January. “My priorities will be public safety and reducing crime, closing homeless encampments in public spaces and ensuring we have effective services to get people off the streets and stay off the streets, and lowering the cost of living for working families.” 

Judging by my conversations with voters and local leaders throughout the race, those issues were top priorities for many residents, eclipsing partisan loyalties. Had McCann been able to keep the race focused on his agenda, he might have stood a strong chance of adding to his winning political track record. 

But two news events knocked him off his stride. 

First came a sentencing hearing in April for a pair of local siblings who recently had been convicted of business fraud. Years ago, McCann had written a letter to President Donald Trump requesting clemency for one of the siblings who was serving a federal prison sentence at the time for a prior fraud conviction. 

The sentencing hearing drew news coverage dredging up McCann’s connection to Trump. Aguirre’s campaign highlighted the connection every chance it got, using Trump’s name to paint McCann as a Republican extremist who would bring “MAGA chaos” to South County. 

The following month, a dramatic federal immigration raid at a restaurant in San Diego’s South Park neighborhood – at the northern edge of District 1 – drew widespread condemnation from local Democrats and brought the issue of immigration into the campaign. 

Aguirre condemned the raid and immediately staged a campaign event outside the restaurant. McCann kept silent, perhaps aiming to keep his campaign focused on local issues, since county supervisors have no control over federal immigration policy. 

Once again, Aguirre used the raid as a pretext to connect McCann with Trump, equating his silence with support for Trump’s immigration policy. By the time McCann voiced opposition to the raid at a televised debate more than a week later, Aguirre’s message had sunk in. 

The lesson of the campaign seems to be that South County voters are politically moderate, focused on the cost of living and maybe even edging rightward on certain political issues. But they are not pro-Trump enthusiasts. And Trump’s current maximalist approach to pursuing his agenda is alienating a constituency that just a few months ago seemed open to giving him a try. 

In a statement conceding the race to Aguirre, McCann struck a conciliatory note, promising to support her leadership and work together on issues facing the region. 

“I am proud that my campaign presented a clear statement in support of reducing the cost of living, getting the homeless off the streets and keeping our community safe,” he said. “These are the principles that have guided me as Mayor of Chula Vista and will continue to be important objectives as I work on behalf of the city I love.” 

One change residents can count on: When I started covering South County last fall, one of the first things I heard from sources was a laundry list of complaints about former Supervisor Vargas. 

Vargas, residents told me, rarely showed up to community events, was slow to respond to community concerns and often seemed more focused on her own political aspirations and pet projects than on the everyday needs of her district. 

In an interview earlier this week, Aguirre promised a different kind of leadership. 

“I will totally attend community groups,” she said. “That’s standard. That’s a no brainer. Some folks don’t like to do that because people have grievances they want to bring up and sometimes people feel uncomfortable. I don’t. That’s our job as elected officials, to hear from communities, learn about the needs and figure out how to bring solutions and make government work for the people.” 

In other words: South County is back in county government. And residents likely will feel the difference. It will be interesting to see how Aguirre, and our region, chart a new path forward. 

What more supervisor race coverage? If you really want to nerd out on local politics, check out our South County Decides homepage, which has everything you ever wanted to know about the race to lead our region. Or, if you just want it all summed up in a single story, try my post-election analysis from earlier this week. 

Now, everyone, stop reading and go celebrate Independence Day. I think we’ve all earned a break. 

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