REGION — Terra Lawson-Remer — a Democrat who served as a senior adviser in the Obama administration — has defeated incumbent Kristin Gaspar, a Republican elected in 2016 to represent District 3 on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
The district includes a handful of districts in northern San Diego as well as Del Mar, Escondido, Solana Beach and Encinitas, where Gaspar served aa mayor from 2014 to 2016.
Lawson-Remer has never held public office, but was endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Scott Peters and county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher.
With about 70 percent of ballots counted countywide, Lawson-Remer received 146,205 votes (59.5%) to Gaspar’s 99,474 (40.5%).
Elsewhere in the county, a health executive and the mayor of Poway were leading today in their bids to claim open seats on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, while an incumbent was voted out.
District 1 board members Greg Cox and District 2’s Dianne Jacob are both termed out, meaning the board will have at least two new members.
Cox, a Republican, has been in office since 1995, representing the district that includes National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado, along with 19 communities within the city of San Diego, including Barrio Logan and Sunset Cliffs. It also features the unincorporated communities of Bonita, East Otay Mesa, Lincoln Acres and Sunnyside.
Nora Vargas, a health executive, expanded on an early lead in the race to replace him, securing 55% of the vote to 45% for state Sen. Ben Hueso.
Both Vargas and Hueso are Democrats.
Hueso, a former San Diego City Council member, has represented Senate District 40 since 2013.
Vargas is a vice president of Planned Parenthood of the Southwest and also serves on the Southwest Community College board.
The District 2 race, meanwhile, had Poway Mayor Steve Vaus with a narrow 50.3% to 49.7% lead over fellow Republican and former state lawmaker Joel Anderson.
The termed-out Jacob, also a Republican, joined the Board of Supervisors in 1993. The district is home to the cities of El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, Poway and Santee; and the San Diego communities of Allied Gardens, College Area, Del Cerro, Grantville, Navajo, Rolando and San Carlos.
It also covers East County’s unincorporated communities of Alpine, Campo, Julian, Ramona, Rancho San Diego and Spring Valley. Anderson represented the East County in the Assembly from 2007 to 2009, and in the state Senate from 2010 to 2018.
A Grammy-winning recording artist, Vaus first served on the Poway City Council before winning the 2014 mayoral race. His leadership during the deadly 2019 shooting at a Poway synagogue received national attention.
It was not immediately clear how many votes still need to be tallied in the District 1 and District 2 races.
Correction: Due to a typographical error, an earlier version of this story misreported the percentage of the vote received by Gaspar as of the release of Election Day results late Tuesday. She held 40.5%, not 49.5%; the vote totals were correct at the time of publication.
