Tuesday is the last day to vote in the general election.
If you’re reading this on Sunday while sipping on your cafecito and staring at the row of bubbles you need to fill in with dread, know you are not alone. This week, hundreds of readers have been downloading Voice of San Diego’s No BS Voter Guide from our site.
You can download the guide here for free or read it online.
Best of luck with voting. Here’s what you need to know before you start your week.
Big Donors, Big Spenders
We teamed up with our Public Matters partners at KPBS to identify the big donors and spenders in San Diego elections. Our team found that millions of dollars have been spent to convince voters to support certain candidates and ballot measures.
You can dig into the data here.
Related: Reporter Lisa Halverstadt dug into the major funders contributing to the campaign for Measure B, a proposed countywide half-cent sales tax increase. So far, the Yes on B campaign has raised more than $3.4 million through Oct. 28. Read more here.
Real Life Influencers
It’s one thing to be a social media star and another to be so great you actually get people off their phones and to the polls.
But that’s exactly what four San Diego candidates are attempting to do. Will it work? You guys will let us know next week. Reporter Bella Ross wrote about the candidates who are trying to turn their popularity on social media to victories against their opponents.
Read about the social stars here.
Fact Check: Did Martha Abraham Call the Cops on Her Neighbors?
The battle to represent southeastern San Diego on the City Council has been gnarly this election season. Councilmember Henry Foster is facing newcomer Martha Abraham.
Incumbents can for the most part expect an easy win, but Abraham finished just 12 votes behind Foster in the primary and she has the support of some influential players in politics. The results could go either way.
Meanwhile, an accusation against Abraham has surfaced several times on social media: she has weaponized cops and the justice system against her neighbors.
Our reporters Will Huntsberry and Mariana Martínez Barba looked at the available evidence and spoke to neighbors about Abraham familiar with two incidents.
What they found: “Abraham did have disputes with neighbors on both sides of her home. In both cases, she made some calls to police and in one case she tried to get a restraining order that was rejected by a judge.
But both cases are messy. In neither case is there any clear evidence that Abraham used the police to ‘terrorize’ her neighbors, as one social media post put it.”
San Diego’s Socialists
If you’re in the mood for a great piece of journalism about San Diego’s socialists, our reporter Jakob McWhinney has you covered.
He writes that over the past two years, the San Diego Democratic Socialists of America chapter has nearly tripled in size and become more involved in elections.
“DSA is the one organization doing things that feel responsive,” one member told McWhinney. “I have a [DSA] card, so I guess I’m a socialist now,” he added with a laugh.
Read more about the history of the socialist movement in San Diego and the chapter’s hope for the future.