Santa Barbara County Election Update

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Santa Barbara County
Election update

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

By Nick Welsh | November 6, 2024

There was little joy in Mudville this Tuesday night, 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 upbeat conversation about gratitude, humility, service and the opportunities that lay ahead. But even the most optimistic people watched the big screens behind the bar with trepidation.

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

In a word, the answer was no. In the battle of vibes, Harris fell decisively short against the most starkly dystopian and overtly racist candidate to ever represent the Republican Party – the golem of American politics – Donald J. Trump.

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

The sky had fallen.

As revelers walked from their “party” at SB Biergarten in the Funk Zone 18 blocks State Street to SOhO, Biergarten waitstaff cleaned up. Waitresses sat in tears on their phones, crying about the evening’s results. They called their families. They called loved ones. Could this really be true? There were no stiff upper lips.

The sky had fallen. And difficult 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, living in what has been called “flyover country” – America’s rust belt, made famous by the benign neglect of globalism trade policy and the ascendancy of the new tech-bro economy. It was the clash of political civilizations, said a talking head. The divide between two Americas, said another.

But because politics is politics, the show must go on. And Santa Barbara is largely inoculated against the gathering storm of encroaching inevitability. In an election marked by lower-than-expected turnout, Santa Barbara voters elected two City Council candidates who strongly support rent control: incumbent Oscar Gutierrez in District 3 and a newcomer to the City Council, Wendy Santamaria in District 1. the reliability of the calculations means that there will now be four council members – a voting majority – who support rent control.

To the extent that Santa Barbara’s city council races involved any drama, it was in District 1; Wendy Santamaria, a union organizer by profession and progressive activist by profession, was all smiles Tuesday evening. And Santamaria, who has made rent control her main talking point, is blessed with a 150-watt smile. That’s a useful trait for a candidate better known as a rabble-rouser.

“We are looking at a new era of housing, reform and justice for working families in this city,” Santamaria said on election night. “And I’m not exaggerating. I literally mean that we finally have enough votes in the city council to make real reforms and create real policies that are based on experience and not on special interests.”

It’s no surprise that Santa Barbara’s landlords, housing associations and property managers had heavily rallied behind incumbent District 1 Councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez, an outspoken foe of rent control. Her own parents were mother and father landlords.

Gutierrez, who initially won a seat on the council by a margin of just eight votes, lost – at the last count – by 138 votes to a candidate she denounced as a carpetbagger. During her time in office, she was beset by pressing health issues that she did not disclose, and missed 61 City Council business meetings. Imbued with the fierce and prickly independence of someone born and raised on the city’s much-neglected east side, Gutierrez made it clear that she would march to her own drum.

All politics is personal. But in District 1, things got personal, and silly, as the campaign spiraled into a last-minute comic microdrama involving competing sign-stealing conspiracy theories. On election night, Gutierrez did not concede defeat, instead saying, “I was born and raised in Santa Barbara and 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.”

District 3 – the west side of the city – on the other hand, was always Oscar Gutierrez’s job to navigate through. On election night, he did just that. Gutierrez defeated his challenger and his former martial arts sensei, Tony Becerra, by a decisive margin of 500 votes: 59 percent to 40.6 percent. Although Becerra is also blessed with a bright smile and generous donations from local landlords, he was too nice to really go on the offensive against Gutierrez. Both candidates are children of Mexican immigrants who grew up in households where Spanish was the first language.

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

Like Alejandra Gutierrez, Oscar Gutierrez lives at home with his mother, who also happens to be a small-time landlord. She opposes rent control and many of the protections her son champions. It’s one of those issues, he says, where he and his mother agree to disagree.

It’s worth noting that voters across the country overwhelmingly oppose Prop. 33, a statewide ballot initiative that would have increased the hold on state rent control laws at the local level. Landlords have admittedly spent lavishly – and effectively – to defeat it. In addition, voters in the county narrowly supported a measure by the National Landlord Association aimed at eliminating the tenants’ rights organization that passed Prop. 33, or a variant thereof, on the ballot paper for the third time.

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

Insofar as there are decisive votes in the council, Jordan is one of them. However, he is not in favor of rent control – for him that is a bridge too far – and would like to explain why. But he’d much 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 in order, from the underpass to State Street to De la Guerra Plaza and the just-opened library plaza last weekend,” he said. “Personally, I think we are on one of the precipices of some of the greatest good things, especially downtown.”

Perhaps the biggest sleeper among Santa Barbara’s city races is Measure I, the half-cent sales tax increase, which is being gently maligned by some council members who point out that it is regressive. Measure I was 62.55 percent ahead. It takes 55 percent to win. The donors — mainly Kelly McAdoo, the newest city manager at City Hall — spent nothing. They ran an almost non-existent campaign. In return, Measure I promises to generate $17 million a year.

By contrast, backers of Measure P — the $198 million construction repair and reconstruction bond package — spent nearly $350,000. No social media platform was safe, no mailbox could not be penetrated. 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 such measures, supported the measure, creating a partisan divide among conservatives and fiscal hawks in Santa Barbara. That’s all for now.

Santa Barbara Votes:
2024 General Election Results

Results for regional, national and
National races in the 2024 presidential election