Will Rodriguez Kennedy Is Ready to Fight for San Diego’s Dem Party

The San Diego County Democratic Party will choose their next chair Aug. 19 in one of the most contentious leadership races in recent memory, pitting former chair Will Rodriguez-Kennedy against former South County Vice Chair Sarah Ochoa. The winner will lead the party into high-stakes fights ahead — from possible congressional redistricting to the 2026 election cycle.

Rodriguez-Kennedy, who led the party from 2019 to 2022, is running on a platform of reclaiming more than 124,000 voters he says were “left behind” in the last election, expanding the party’s reach, and unifying a fractured membership. His campaign comes amid sharp criticism from opponents and renewed discussion of past controversies, such as a sex scandal that unfolded in 2022, which he addresses directly here.

In this Q&A, Rodriguez-Kennedy discusses his record, his strategy for expanding the party’s tent, and the leadership style he says is needed to win in the current political climate.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Can you talk a little bit about your background, leading up to your decision to run for this seat?

I am from the South Bronx — the poorest community in the country. I grew up in the congressional district represented by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; I even have a picture of me with her. I’ve always connected with something she once said: sometimes you come from a community where your zip code often determines your destiny. For many people in the South Bronx, that’s true — you’re born there, and because of the economic realities, you live and die there.

My mom was the one who managed to get me out of the Bronx, and the United States Marine Corps gave me the opportunity to be independent. We didn’t have money for college, and I don’t have a degree. Everything I’ve accomplished in life, I’ve had to fight for.

I joined the Marine Corps, but under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — institutional discrimination — I was discharged because I was gay. I was thrown out, became homeless, and that’s when I got involved politically. That’s how this whole journey started.

I have fought for everything I’ve earned. Some people have opportunities handed to them, but I’ve had to work for each one. That’s why I don’t take anything for granted, especially when it comes to the people I want to represent. When I talk to someone, I want them to feel — and to know — that I am fighting for their vote.

What is your vision for the San Diego County Democratic Party heading into the 2026 election cycle, and how would your leadership differ from your opponent’s?

Here’s the reality: there are 124,735 voters who voted in 2020 who did not vote in 2024 [in San Diego County]. I don’t know if you know, but 98.8 percent of that number — 123,278 voters — represent the amount of voters that Joe Biden had, which were more than what Kamala Harris received in 2024.

So what that represents is more than 123,000 people that our party left behind, and it’s an existential threat. We have to address this problem. That happened in 2024. The party’s fundraising was fine. But we have to be able to acknowledge that something went wrong — that something went wrong while my opponent was in charge — and we lost thousands of voters in the South Bay.

Because of that lack of success, we lost major revenue bonds. We lost races that we probably should have won. What I plan to do is focus back on the things that are of strategic importance to the party, to start focusing on and unifying our party around the objective things we can do to address that existential question, which is: how do we get our voters back, and how do we expand our tent?

I’ve identified three strategic corridors — in the north, in the east, and in our base in the south — in which to do different things, where we will have to engage in more community organizing. We need to lean in on communications, and we need to have a multilingual program, which we did not do an effective job with last time.

We have to acknowledge the reality that our party is demanding a fighter — they’re demanding a party that fights for them, listens to them, and talks about the issues that address their everyday life: how to get better jobs, how to put food on the table, how to have a better quality of life, how to address the housing crisis. We need to lean in on all those communications and all those priorities of working people in San Diego.

We also need to make sure we are standing up for marginalized communities who are under attack right now. We have a situation where the [Trump] administration is going into our workplaces, instilling fear, dragging abuelitas out of their workplaces. They’re incarcerating American citizens. They’re putting the parents of military veterans — military veterans — in detention. That is a problem we need to stand up to as a region as well.

It’s really helpful to elevate a member of the Latino community, a member of the veteran community — especially considering the importance that the military serves to our region — and that’s also a benefit of my candidacy.

Some members say the fallout from the sex scandal you were involved in still affects trust in your leadership. How do you plan to rebuild that trust — particularly among those who feel your return may reopen old wounds?

It was a horrible situation, and what I did was step aside so that the party could move on and do its important work. I stayed involved and advised in the background.

The reality is we live in a country — and a world — where we are afforded the human rights of the presumption of innocence and due process. Due process occurred, and I was cleared. That means we get the opportunity to lead again. We get the opportunity to live our lives in the sunlight again.

I would not wish what happened to me on my worst enemy. I spent years bedridden. I got very sick. The mental anguish of going through the type of thing that I went through — how it hurt me and how it turned me into basically a hermit — I wouldn’t wish that [on anyone], especially for something you did not do.

It’s being brought up again because surrogates of my opponents want to bring it up. In spite of the fact that there is clear and compelling evidence that I did not do the thing, they’re bringing it up because it’s political. But here’s the thing: I didn’t do the thing. And in the grand scheme of things, it’s a distraction.

We have so many important things to do. I can’t change what has been said or written about me, but I can demonstrate the competency of my work. I can demonstrate my own merit. I can demonstrate the content of my character. I can do that by acting upright. I can do that by acting transparently. I can do that by acting with strength and grace — because grace is the providence of strength.

If anything, I learned from how this went down that we can treat our fellow people better. We should. Horrible people did horrible things to me, but we can treat people better. And that’s what I intend to do.

Some members describe the party as cliquey and hostile to grassroots voices. Would you change that culture and ensure broader inclusion in decision-making?

I have to say that I have experienced the cliquishness, and I have often been on the outside of it. I have experienced the nastiness of people creating a faction and then treating you as an outsider — even to the point where you feel like it doesn’t matter what you do, if you’re not in the right clique, you cannot advance. I feel a little bit of that going on right now.

I am the chair who opened up the Central Committee, who expanded our party. We grew our party by 24 percent in membership while I was chair. I created reforms that allowed for more people to serve on the committee. We created more membership classes in order to allow more people from underrepresented backgrounds to come into the Central Committee and serve. We diversified the Central Committee. I led a very diverse and younger executive board.

I come from a community where oftentimes your ZIP code determines your destiny, so I understand what it means to be on the outside. I live that struggle every day. Right now, we are seeing that I am literally the former chair who led our county to victory, and even now, certain cliques will not acknowledge or support me just because I’m not a member of their clique. I see that as a problem.

We need to break that down — not by empowering the clique, but by opening up the doors. We bring more chairs to the table. We do more intentional community outreach. We invest in our efforts year-round to speak to voters and community members when we’re not in an election cycle. We cannot have a party where you only hear from Democratic organizers when it’s time to vote.

We need people in the community who are listening to PTAs, to different community groups, talking about stop signs at certain intersections or other hyperlocal issues. We need to get into the community outside of the election cycle so we can build relationships and expand representation.

It’s not just a Democratic problem — it’s an institutional problem. Anytime you have an institution or a group of people, it’s very common for them to create close-knit relationships, especially when you go through high-level fights. It happens in the military. It happens in community groups. If you go through shared struggles, you may establish that sort of cliquishness. But there are ways to mitigate that and make sure it’s more open and welcoming.

Some members have called for the chair vote to be delayed to allow more time for forums and discussion. Do you support that request? Why or why not?

Well, no. The party has noticed this election properly, and we’ve had more forums on this race — and more scheduled — than any party chair race in history. We have done four forums so far. I have one tonight, and I think there are still four more to go. There will be nine total in this race.

This has been the most transparent and public chair’s race in the history of the Democratic Party. I think some people are operating on a bit of misinformation there.

On Sept. 5, it is very possible that the legislature will [hold] a special election to redistrict the congressional districts. If that’s the case, that would mean we would be in a very high-profile, top-priority special election in less than a month. We need a chair before that.

We cannot afford to wait. The one thing we do not have — the one commodity we cannot get back — is time. If we push it back, first of all, we will have another month of these negative attacks. We’ll just mire in the negativity, which will make things worse and be more divisive for the party.

Secondly, we will not be well equipped to wage the campaign we need to in order to save our country. We have to put our priorities first. The priority is to establish leadership, do the hard work immediately after the chair’s race to unify the party, and then get to work on the special election, on the recall efforts that are happening. There are real, high priorities we have to get to now, so we cannot sacrifice the one commodity we do not have — time.

There’s been a lot of talk about anonymous letters and negative campaigning from both sides. Have you seen these attacks, and what’s your position on that kind of tactic?

I issued a statement about this, and what I said was: leadership is often determined by how our teams are inspired to act in our endeavors. No matter how much one pretends to be a paragon of virtue, the actions of our close friends and supporters reflect upon us. I try to inspire my team to act with strength and grace. Others have appeared to choose personal destruction, disparagement, and division. I will never bow in the face of such vile duplicity, and I will not suborn such behavior on my team. Win or lose, I will do so on the merits — with grit and grace — and hope for the future.

I hope others will join me in choosing authentic grace over vitriol shrouded by the veneer of toxic positivity. You must stand against the politics of personal destruction.

That was my statement. I posted it on Facebook.

What I mean by that is this: this is a distraction. My campaign has a focus, and that focus is not in the opposition campaign. My campaign is about the 124,735 voters who were left behind in the last election — how to reach out to them, and how to expand our tent. The other campaign, the other side — whether because they know they’re behind or for whatever reason — is going to focus on the negative. Their surrogates are going to focus on the negative. That’s their approach.

We’re not going to do that. We’re going to focus on the issues. We’re going to focus on the merits. We’re going to win this on the issues. We’re going to win it with grace.

So I think it’s all a distraction, and I condemn it. I don’t want any of my team, or anyone supporting me, to do something anonymous. If you have something to say, you put your name on it, and you stand in the sunlight when you say it. I have no place on my team for someone who does this type of thing. And I would hope my opponent would inspire the same in hers.

Latino turnout in South County dropped significantly during the last general election, and some precincts flipped conservative. What went wrong — how would you address this?

Our party failed to field a multilingual, Latino, Spanish-speaking program in 2024. We did that in 2020 — in the middle of a pandemic — and we had been making great progress deepening relationships in the Latino community.

It’s unfortunate, but my opponent was in charge of the area which represents a bulk of our Latino population in the South Bay, and unfortunately, it didn’t come out for us.

We have to do a lot of things. First, we need to focus on the basics. We need to speak to Latino voters in the media outlets they are listening to, in the language they speak, and on the issues they care about — and that wasn’t done by our party.

There are a lot of people who feel they have been left behind and that we’re focusing on other things. The reality is we need to bring it back to what people care about — housing, jobs, putting food on the table — and make sure that is a priority. We still have to fight for the rights of all people. That is a bedrock principle. We cannot leave people in the dark, especially considering this administration.

We also have to make sure we deliver on our promises and that we are, in an intentional way, reaching out to the Latino community. It’s helpful to have a Latino chair, but it’s also helpful to just do the work — which is putting together a strong Spanish-speaking program.

This has been a tense, sometimes ugly race. If elected, how would you unite the party — especially those who supported your opponent?

Well, I’ve done it before. I’ve been elected in contested elections before. In those elections, I reached out to the other side. I brought them together. We broke bread.

A contested election is not a new thing. There’s nothing wrong with it. People have a contest of ideas, and then in the end, someone wins. It is the mandate of the leader who is elected to reach out to the people who did not win — and we have to do that with grace. We must be graceful in victory, and we should be respectful in defeat.

Whatever happens, I am a Democrat and I’m a patriot. I love this country and I love this party — in that order. I will do what I can to make sure we bring people together for the fight ahead. If I prevail, I will be well positioned to do that. I’ve done that work before.

I was elected in a contested election in 2019. I unified our party, and I led us to a historic victory. We achieved that by coming together. I have a record for doing that that my opponent just doesn’t have. I have brought people together and established historic victories with people who have very different ideas about what we should do and how we should do it.

We did that by establishing common ground, by breaking bread together, by treating people with grace, by raising the level of decorum in our meetings, and by setting standards of conduct. There was a whole list of hard work we had to do to get to that point — and we can do it again.

We have more to do now because we have a common enemy and a common goal. We have a tyrannical administration bearing down on our communities. People are being dragged out of their houses. People are fearful. We have so much more that unites us as a party than divides us.

I am well equipped and well qualified to lead that work — and I will do it, win or lose. If I were not to win, I’m still the president of a major Democratic club, the Veterans Democratic Club, and I’m still a major party leader. I have a responsibility to unify the party regardless. The chair’s title almost doesn’t matter in that respect. I will do that work regardless.

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