In an election year when Democrats are hoping to unify and make major gains after two years under President Donald Trump, one staunchly Democratic region in San Diego County is veering off script.
South County Democrats are at war with one another over a controversial school board candidacy, a mayoral endorsement and a wider debate over the growing power of labor unions in local politics.
Tensions boiled over at a local Democratic club meeting in late April, where a party activist and a top party official got into a shouting match. The dispute led to a formal complaint, followed by the abrupt resignation earlier this month of the party official, who coordinated the party’s South County operations.
The activist and party leader were arguing over the party’s endorsement of a labor-friendly school board candidate whose job at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has caused unease among some Latino Democrats.
The argument grew heated and at one point meeting attendees moved to restrain the party leader after he began shouting in the activist’s face.
The county’s Democratic Party is divided into regions comprised of dozens of local Democratic clubs. The clubs hold regional caucus meetings to decide on endorsements, which then go to the county’s Central Committee for final approval.
Endorsements can make or break a Democrat’s candidacy because they often unlock campaign donations and can enable placement on party voter recommendation mailers.
Activists in the party’s South County region say they are growing increasingly frustrated with what they described as party leaders’ efforts to ramrod labor-backed candidates through the endorsement process, even when local party members object.
Now, a group of activists is pushing back.
On Tuesday, nearly two dozen party members sought to delay an endorsement vote at a meeting of the party’s Central Committee for the school board candidate employed by DHS.
The candidate, they said, was evading scrutiny over her job because she is backed by her school district’s teachers union.
The effort failed by just one vote after an impassioned debate, and the DHS employee, Jessica Tolston, got the party’s official nod.
With the feuding showing no signs of abating, San Diego County Democratic Party Chairman Will Rodriguez-Kennedy said he is planning “a series of efforts to break bread and heal the divisions.”
Rodriguez-Kennedy said the stakes for Democrats are too high this year for the party to succumb to internal conflict.
“We have critical races where the stakes are the balance of power,” he said. “There are some people who just can’t get past some of their conflicts. But I will do my best to make sure we’re working together as much as possible.”
Rodriguez-Kennedy said he would ask party members to show “more grace for our Democratic officials. There is a lot more that unites us than divides us.”
The debate on Tuesday centered on the candidacy of Tolston, a Chula Vista Elementary School District Trustee.
Tolston works as a management and program analyst in DHS’s Office of Biometric Identity Management, which coordinates facial recognition and other governmental identity verification programs.
She said she does not work in immigration enforcement and is committed to “ensuring every child feels safe, secure, welcome and able to succeed in our schools regardless of background.”
Nevertheless, her job has generated pushback from activists who say a DHS employee should not be running schools at a time when immigrant families are fearful of federal enforcement and keeping their kids home.
“My concern with Jessica Tolston is just that in all the spaces she was invited to explain why she wanted to be on the [school] board and explain how that impacted her job as a DHS agent, she declined to attend,” said Nadia Kean-Ayub, one of the party members who has objected to Tolston’s candidacy.
“No one [denies] she has a long-term job and needs to provide for her family. We just wanted to hear how that would impact her role as someone who oversees thousands of students. She might face a situation where she would have divided loyalties,” Kean-Ayub said.
Activists at Tuesday’s Central Committee meeting objected that party leaders appeared to be fast-tracking Tolston’s endorsement over another Democratic candidate with more school leadership experience.
Tolston, who is the parent of a child at a Chula Vista elementary school, was appointed to her school board seat in late 2024. Prior to that she had never held elected office or served in school district leadership.
Tolston has been a reliable vote in favor of policies supported by the district’s teachers union, which in recent years has spent heavily to elect union-friendly candidates.
Tolston’s opponent, former Chula Vista Elementary School District principal Debra McLaren, has criticized the district’s current superintendent, Eduardo Reyes. She said Reyes has presided over a period of stagnating test scores and mounting deficits.
Reyes has drawn praise from teachers union president Rosi Martinez for moving the Chula Vista district in a more union-friendly direction.
“All [Democratic Party leaders] see is the money is coming from the labor [unions],” said South County Democrat Christine Brady, who attended the local club meeting at which the shouting match over Tolston’s candidacy occurred.
“As soon as they… know the money is coming through, they’ll support Mickey Mouse,” Brady said.
Jackie Venegas, vice president of the Chula Vista teachers union, acknowledged the union is backing Tolston because she is what Venegas called “labor-friendly.”
But Venegas said the union considers a wide range of factors when endorsing candidates, including candidates’ support for students, their understanding of budget issues and their willingness to work collaboratively with teachers, parents and administrators.
“We have seen [Tolston’s] support of teachers, her student-centered vision and her support [for] the district,” Venegas said.
The shouting match over Tolston occurred at a combative April 30 meeting of a local South County Democratic club focused on Latino issues.
A video recording of the meeting shows members debating whether to formally object to Tolston’s candidacy because of her job.
At one point, Kean-Ayub got into an argument with Jason Bercovitch, who at the time presided over the party’s South County region as a vice chair.
Bercovitch, like other party leaders, supported Tolston and urged members of the Latino-focused club not to share with other party members a letter they had written outlining their opposition to Tolston.
When Kean-Ayub objected that Bercovitch seemed not to understand Latinos’ concerns, Bercovitch began shouting at her, placing himself directly in front of her and accusing her of “bring[ing] in the race card.”
Two members moved to restrain Bercovitch, and Kean-Ayub began accusing him and other party leaders of being “controlled by a minority that does not allow for concern when it counters their plan to consolidate power.”
After the meeting ended, shouting continued in a hallway outside.
A few weeks later, after Kean-Ayub sent a formal complaint to the party’s ethics committee, Bercovitch, who works as a local district director for U.S. Rep. Scott Peters, abruptly resigned from his vice chairmanship.
“There is absolutely no excuse for my conduct at the [local club] meeting, and for that, I sincerely apologize,” Bercovitch wrote in an email to Kean-Ayub, much of which he reposted as a public apology on Facebook.
On Tuesday, Democrats chose Rafael Perez, a realtor who recently mounted an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the San Diego City Council, as Bercovitch’s replacement.
The controversy over Tolston followed an earlier controversy over the party’s endorsement of Chula Vista mayoral candidate Francisco Tamayo.
Tamayo, also a trustee of the Chula Vista Elementary School District, already was on shaky ground with Democrats.
In 2024, he executed an unorthodox electoral move to oust a fellow Democrat on the school board by running against her in the middle of his own term in office.
Outraged party leaders moved to censure Tamayo.
But they put the dispute behind them when he announced plans this year to challenge current Chula Vista Mayor John McCann.
McCann, a long-serving Republican, has been a thorn in the side of South County Democrats for years.
At an April 6 meeting of the party’s South Area caucus, representatives from the region’s local Democratic clubs debated whether to endorse Tamayo’s bid against McCann.
Several speakers objected to Tamayo, saying he had failed to support Black students in the Chula Vista Elementary School District and had disrespected the LGBTQ community by ousting the fellow Democrat from the school board.
The Democrat he ousted, Kate Bishop, had been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ students.
The caucus voted 16-7 to endorse Tamayo.
A few weeks later, in an April 28 letter to party leaders, party activist Cynara Velasquez accused leaders of violating party bylaws to benefit Tamayo by concealing the fact that another Democrat also had entered the mayoral race.
Party leaders at the April 6 meeting told caucus members Tamayo was the only Democrat in the race, Velasquez said in her letter. But in fact, another Democrat, first-time candidate Yair Gersten, had filed papers to run several weeks earlier.
Had party members known there was an alternative to Tamayo, they might have voted differently, Velasquez wrote. “We respectfully request that the party follow its own policies and procedures and withdraw the endorsement of Francisco Tamayo for mayor,” she concluded.
Party leaders disputed Velasquez’s accusation and kept the endorsement.
Now a new source of division has arisen.
This week, a prominent labor union representing construction workers unveiled a Chula Vista ballot measure that would radically reshape city government by giving elected officials an additional term in office, expanding city councilmembers’ duties and strengthening the hand of public safety unions in labor contract negotiations.
Already, the proposed ballot measure is generating pushback, with some Democrats in and outside of Chula Vista calling it a union power grab.
“Why isn’t [the labor union backing the measure] being transparent about their control over the [San Diego] Democratic Party, purchasing the majority of the seats?” Kean-Ayub wrote on Facebook last week.
At Tuesday’s Central Committee meeting, Rodriguez-Kennedy said turnout results from this month’s June 2 primary election showed Democrats are fired up and in a strong position to win big in November – provided they remain unified.
Democrats, he said, turned out in greater numbers than in the last midterm election in 2022 and posted strong results in key races.
In an earlier interview, Rodriguez-Kennedy acknowledged results were less spectacular in South County, where McCann won 56 percent of the primary vote and no Democratic city council candidate cracked 50 percent.
“The South Bay is often an area with a diversity of opinions,” Rodriguez-Kennedy said, choosing his words carefully.
“Those opinions are usually very passionate and very strong. In the grand scheme of things, these are people who are dedicated to the party and its success. There are all sorts of complaints and so forth. I try to stay out of that and keep things going in the same direction.”
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