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Santa Barbara County
Election update

From the White House to City Hall:
Some surprises and
Not so surprising results

By Nick Welsh | November 6, 2024

There was little joy in Mudville this Tuesday night, not even among the victorious candidates here in Santa Barbara. As the victors (all Democrats) and their supporters gathered in downtown bars and nightclubs, there was the obligatory cheerful talk about gratitude, humility, service and the opportunities ahead. But even the most optimistic looked askance at the large screens behind the bar.

Was there any reason to offer hope or joy to Kamala Harris, her party’s presidential standard-bearer who sought to make “hope” and “joy” campaign buzzwords?

In a word, the answer was no. In the battle of the vibes, Harris came up decidedly short against the most grimly dystopian and openly racist candidate to ever represent the Republican Party, the golem of American politics, Donald J. Trump.

Beyond the White House, the Senate swung decisively in favor of Republicans, 52-42. At the end of the night, the fate of the House was uncertain at best. The final results, the party faithful were told, would not be known for days.

The sky had fallen.

As revelers left their “celebration” at SB Biergarten in Funk Zone, 18 blocks from State Street to SOhO, Biergarten servers ordered. The waitresses were crying into their phones, crying about the results of the night. They called their families. They called their loved ones. Could this really be true? There were no stiff upper lips.

The sky had fallen. And hard too.

On television, pundits discussed the contours of the diploma divide and how Trump won thanks to economically alienated white voters, blue-collar workers without college degrees, who live in what is called “flyover country”: the Rust Belt. of the United States, hollowed out by the benign neglect of globalist trade policies and the rise of the new technological economy. It was the clash of political civilizations, said one commentator. The abyss of two Americas, said another.

But politics being political, the show must go on. And to a large extent, Santa Barbara is inoculated against the impending storm of encroaching inevitability. In an election marked by lower-than-expected turnout, voters in the city of Santa Barbara elected two City Council candidates who strongly support rent control: incumbent Oscar Gutierrez in District 3 and a newcomer to the city council , Wendy Santamaría in District 1. Depending on the reliability of the math means that there will now be four councilors (a majority of voters) who will support rent control.

To the extent that the Santa Barbara council election had any drama, it was in District 1; Wendy Santamaría, union organizer by profession and progressive activist by vocation, was all smiles Tuesday night. And Santamaría, who made rent control her number one topic of conversation, is graced with a 150-watt smile. That’s a useful attribute for a candidate best known as a firebrand.

“We are facing a new era of housing, reform and justice for the working families of this city,” Santamaría said on election night. “And I’m not exaggerating. I literally mean finally having enough votes on the City Council to really do some reform and really create policies based on lived experience and not special interests.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Santa Barbara landlords, rental property associations and property managers have largely pooled their resources to support incumbent District 1 Councilwoman Alejandra Gutierrez, a vocal foe of rent control. . His own parents were family owners.

Gutiérrez, who initially won a seat on the council by a margin of just eight votes, lost – at last count – by 138 votes to a candidate he called a braggart. Plagued during her tenure by pressing health issues that she did not publicly disclose, she missed 61 council business meetings. Imbued with the fierce, fastidious independence of someone born and raised on the city’s much-forgotten east side, Gutierrez made it clear that she would march to the beat of her own drum.

All politics is personal. But in District 1, it got personal — and also silly — as the campaign descended into a last-minute comedic microdrama featuring competing conspiracy theories about sign theft. On election night, Gutiérrez did not admit defeat, instead saying: “I was born and raised in Santa Barbara and I am rooted in that community…. I understand the needs of my district, the needs of the entire district. And I know how to make that connection.”

By contrast, District 3, the west side of the city, was always up to Oscar Gutiérrez to make his way through. On election night, he did just that. Gutiérrez defeated his challenger and former martial arts sensei, Tony Becerra, by a decisive margin of 500 votes: 59 percent to 40.6 percent. Although Becerra has also been blessed with a bright smile and generous donations from local property owners, he was too kind to really attack Gutiérrez. Both candidates are children of Mexican immigrants who grew up in homes where Spanish was the first language.

Gutiérrez is proud to say he is the most responsive city council member in Santa Barbara, estimating that he responded to 27,000 calls, texts or emails from constituents. Gutierrez supports rent control and ignores arguments about the unintended consequences of rent control. Tenants need protection, he says. And so they have told him.

Like Alejandra Gutiérrez, Oscar Gutiérrez lives at home with his mother, who is also a small landowner. He opposes rent control and many of the protections his son advocates for. It’s one of those issues, he says, that he and his mother agree to disagree on.

It’s worth noting that across the county, voters overwhelmingly opposed Proposition 33, a statewide ballot initiative that would have expanded the reach of the state’s rent control laws at the local level. It’s true that the owners spent lavishly (and effectively) to defeat him. Additionally, county voters narrowly backed a measure devised by the state’s landlord association designed to financially punish the tenants’ rights organization that put Proposition 33, or a variant of it, on the ballot for the third time. time.

In the city’s District 2, Michael Jordan, who represents Mesa, has a sure-fire 80 percent lead over a candidate named Terra Taylor who spent less than $100 on a campaign that came out of nowhere. Jordan first emerged as a business-minded candidate who, over the years, has gradually shifted in a quasi-liberal/progressive direction.

To the extent there are swing votes on the council, Jordan is one of them. However, he does not support rent control (for him, it is a bridge too far) and is willing to explain why. But I’d rather explain how downtown Santa Barbara is about to be reborn, and in spectacular fashion. “Not since the (1925) earthquake have we had so many things lined up, from the underpass to State Street to De la Guerra Plaza and the newly opened library plaza last weekend,” he gushed. “I personally think we’re at one of the precipices of some of the biggest good things, particularly downtown.”

Perhaps the most dormant issue among Santa Barbara’s city races is Measure I, the half-cent increase in the sales tax, gently vilified by some council members who say it is regressive. Measure I was ahead at 62.55 percent. You need 55 percent to win. Its backers, primarily City Hall’s new city manager Kelly McAdoo, spent nothing. They ran an almost non-existent campaign. In return, Measure I promises to generate $17 million a year.

By contrast, supporters of Measure P (the $198 million building repair and reconstruction bond package) spent nearly $350,000. No social media platform was secure, no mailbox was free from intrusion. The money (a lot of it, by local standards) came from the Santa Barbara Community College Foundation, but it achieved the desired results. Even the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association, which normally just says no when it comes to these types of measures, endorsed it, creating a division between conservative parties and fiscal hawks in the Santa Barbara community. That’s all for now.

Santa Barbara votes:
2024 General Election Results

Results at the regional, state and
National races in the 2024 presidential election