The final curtain on the 2020 election season has yet to close, but we can hear the stagehands backstage rustling and the orchestra flipping to the final pages in the show’s musical finale.
As of now — with the understanding that there remain significant numbers of ballots remaining to be counted — there appear to be minor surprises associated with the end-of-year political drama.
Incumbents in two cities appear set to exit the stage.
In National City Jerry Cano, at the end of his second four-year term, sits behind four other candidates, while below him council appointee Gonzalo Quintero is in fourth, ahead of only one other person. It’s not unheard of for sitting council members to have a slow showing in the early rounds of vote counting, but it is far more common to see them have a comfortable lead or to be within marginal striking distance.
For example, in Chula Vista Councilman Steve Padilla declared victory in his bid to serve another four years on the council, his fifth term overall at City Hall given that he previously worked as a councilman for two terms, as mayor for one and is now completing his fourth.
His counterpart, however, Mike Diaz is in second behind newcomer Andrea Cardenas. But unlike Cano and Quintero, Diaz is only in a two-person race and the gap between himself and Cardenas is not hopelessly insurmountable.
Mainstay Juan Vargas appears ready for an encore performance in Congress and he will share the federal stage with Sara Jacobs out of the 53rd District.
Longtime star Greg Cox is bowing out of the limelight at the County Board of Supervisors and replacing him in the role is Nora Vargas.
Stalwarts Shirley Weber and Lorena Gonzalez will most likely reprise their roles as California Assembly members, while the embarrassing and pernicious background player Hector Gastelum will probably be yanked from the stage at Otay Water District before he can be censured again for misogyny or bigotry.
But when the lights go on and we walk out of the playhouse we will emerge into a real-life drama. We are still in the midst of a pandemic as winter looms, an economy sputters and racism flourishes, nurtured by the bigots who have been emboldened to show themselves over these last four years.
