VISTA — Six Democrats hoping to flip the 48th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from red to blue shared their views on several salient issues during a forum in Vista on Friday, emphasizing that they are ready to take on Republican opponent, Supervisor Jim Desmond.
The forum at Jim Porter Recreation Center was organized by the Democratic Club of Vista. In attendance were Nuevo school board member Abel Chavez, former Department of Labor official Ammar Campa-Najjar, Coachella Valley entrepreneur Brandon Riker, Vista City Councilmember Corinna Contreras, San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, and state Board of Equalization member Mike Schaefer.
A wave of candidates from San Diego and Riverside counties has filed to run for the 48th, one of five California districts that was redistricted to trend more Democratic following the passage of Proposition 50 in the fall. The redistricting moved much of the district north and west, to include Palm Springs and the cities of Vista, San Marcos, and Escondido.
Other Democratic candidates are business owner Ferguson Porter, executives Stephen Clemons and Eric Shaw. Besides Desmond, other Republicans who have filed are Maria Chaudhry and computer software engineer Kevin Patrick O’Neill. Candidate Luis Reyna, a civil rights organizer, registered no party preference.
The race experienced a major shakeup last week after Republican incumbent Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) announced he would not seek re-election and instead endorsed San Diego County District 5 Supervisor Jim Desmond, who switched over from the 49th District race.
Candidates at the forum celebrated Issa’s departure but said they can’t let Desmond take the seat. They also shared their positions on immigration, gun control, voting rights, the cost of living, and foreign policy.
Von Wilpert repeatedly emphasized her commitment to taking on President Donald Trump and said she will continue her work fighting for workers’ rights, citing her past experience fighting for civil rights as a prosecutor through her work at a legal clinic in the Deep South and in the San Diego City Attorney’s Office.
She noted that she flipped her San Diego City Council District 5 seat from red to blue in the 2020 election, and wants to flip this Congressional seat in November 2026.
“This is not just California’s fight. This is one of the top five seats in the nation we need to flip the House of Representatives,” said von Wilpert.
Campa-Najjar is a Navy veteran who previously ran against Issa in 2020, losing with 46% of the vote. He emphasized that the opportunity is ripe for a Democrat to take the seat.
He also ran for Chula Vista mayor in 2022 and the 50th Congressional District in 2018, but lost both races.
“When we ran for Congress last time, we got more votes than any other Democrat in history, and I believe together, we can get this done,” Campa-Najjar said. “We need someone who can beat Jim Desmond.”
Contreras noted that she was the first Latina and LGBTQ+ member of the Vista City Council, and was also part of the council’s first Democratic majority. As someone who has a mixed-status family when it comes to citizenship, she emphasized that she is tired of the immigrant community being used as political pawns in elections.
Under her and other council members’ leadership, she said Vista has refused to allow the Sheriff’s Department to install automatic license plate reader cameras, which she said are surveillance tools that can be used to share information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“The fight is local,” she said. “Vista is the only contracted city with the Sheriff’s [Department] that doesn’t have mass surveillance and LPRs, and we still have reduced crime.”
Schaefer noted his years of experience as an attorney and as the elected 4th District representative on the state Board of Equalization, which oversees property and insurance taxes. He also served two terms on the San Diego City Council back in the 1960s.
“I have actually won four elections in Vista on the Board of Equalization,” he said.
Riker touted his experience as an economist, small-business owner, and former organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, and emphasized that it’s time to create an economy where people can afford to buy a home.
He said he would be in favor of making the first $50,000 of income tax-free and would like to remove the Social Security payroll cap, currently set at around $184,000, so that wealthier individuals pay their share.
“Both parties have fundamentally failed to build an economy that works for working people. It’s time to change that,” Riker said. “Wages aren’t keeping up.”
Riker said he is also running on a second New Deal, and emphasized that he would like to see the U.S. Supreme Court expanded beyond nine judges in the wake of their overturning gun control laws and federal abortion protections.
Chavez highlighted his background in education and business. He worked as a business broker and said he helps business owners be able to retire successfully, and also worked as a high school teacher before being elected as a school board member in the Nuview Union School District in 2022.
He said he would support making the first $80,000 of income tax-free, and would fight to ensure students can get an education that builds them up for success, including options for trade careers, and that business owners have the support they need.
“That’s how we make a strong economy. We have to build up our small businesses and build up our education,” Chavez said.
On the topic of gun control, several candidates said they would support background checks, assault weapon bans, and gun violence restraining orders, also known as red flag laws. Some candidates spoke from their personal experiences.
Chavez said it’s important to prevent those who may use a gun dangerously from obtaining one. He described how, in the past, a sibling dealing with mental illness had previously attempted to kill him and the rest of his family with a gun.
“When I hear that we need to have all these rules, we need to have better rules to make sure that people that are mentally ill do not have access to these weapons. If someone has a 5150, they shouldn’t have a weapon ever again in their life,” Chavez said.
Campa-Najjar said members of the armed forces face extensive requirements related to firearms — including extended training and restrictions on bringing certain weapons to military bases — and that civilians should face similar restrictions.
“There’s restrictions on what firearms I can bring onto military bases, and the same should be true the other way around — a restriction on what military weapons can be taken off the military base,” Campa-Najjar said.
Candidates agreed that the Trump administration is trying to gut voter rights, and said they would support measures like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
Schaefer highlighted his experience supporting voting rights throughout the state, including suing the City of San Diego for banning write-in candidates in local elections, and suing the San Diego County Registrar of Voters for its practice of listing candidates names on the ballot in alphabetical versus random order, which was later determined to be a denial of equal protection.
Contreras said it’s important to protect mail-in ballots and protect people from intimidation at the polls, and that Election Day needs to be a national holiday so everyone has the chance to vote.
Riker also emphasized that the SAVE Act, which would impose new voter identification requirements, should not pass.
Several candidates also said they oppose the war in Iran and the United States’ declaration of any wars without the approval of Congress. Von Wilpert noted that the war had already affected the region, as bases in the San Diego area were on alert for possible attacks.
“We need to enact the War Powers Resolution. We have to stand up to Donald Trump and not let him fund wars on our dime,” said von Wilpert.
Riker said it’s concerning that the Trump administration doesn’t seem to have a plan for Iran.
“We’ve seen this movie before, it doesn’t end well,” he said. “We need to pass the War Powers Act. That’s not gonna happen until we bring back the House of Representatives, bring back the Senate, and bring back a president that will sign it.”
On the topic of affordability, Contreras said she supports Medicare for all and the construction of more permanent supportive housing and mixed-income social housing. She also said there needs to be more funds for the Department of Agriculture to support the proliferation of small farms in the San Diego region.
“This has to be an integrated economy. We need to expand economic opportunities throughout the 48th district,” she said.
Democrat infighting
Campa-Najjar and von Wilpert have emerged as the two Democratic leaders in the crowded race. Over the past month, Campa-Najjar and von Wilpert have taken shots at each other as the primary grows closer.
This week, Campa-Najjar’s campaign criticized von Wilpert for what they said was a racist attack line in a polling memo.
The memo called Campa-Najjar a “con man,” accusing him of flip-flopping on key issues such as immigration, abortion, and support for Donald Trump. In addition to changing his political positions, von Wilpert’s campaign said, he has also “ran and lost three campaigns from four different addresses under two different names.”
Campa-Najjar said this statement about his name mirrors attacks by former Rep. Duncan Hunter, who accused Campa-Najjar of having terrorist ties and changing his name in order to sound more Hispanic and “infiltrate” Congress during the 2018 race for the 50th District.
“I will never apologize for my name or my heritage,” said Campa-Najjar, who is Mexican and Palestinian. “I’m proud of my multicultural background — my last name is a critical part of that identity — and proud to share the kind of diverse family story that so many people across Southern California have.”
In a 2018 interview with KPBS, the Navy veteran said his legal name was originally Ammar Najjar, but he had gone by Ammar Campa-Najjar for many years to honor his mother. Legally changing his name was just a way to formalize it, he said.
Dan Rottenstreich, a representative for the von Wilpert campaign, said Campa-Najjar changing his name just before the 2018 candidate filing deadline is an example of his larger pattern of “political reinvention.”
“This is desperate, manufactured outrage,” Rottenstreich said of the claims of racism. “The issue isn’t Campa-Najjar’s family history; it’s his long history of changing his politics, changing his district, changing basically anything about himself for political advantage.”
A few weeks prior, von Wilpert accused Campa-Najjar of anti-LGBTQ+ language in his own campaign memo, due to its implication that LGBTQ candidates in the region struggle to receive voter support outside of Palm Springs.
The California Primary Election takes place June 2, and active registered voters in San Diego County will receive a ballot in the mail the week of May 4. The top two vote-getters in the 48th District race will advance to the General Election in November.
