That’s right people, today is the last day to vote.
It also marks the end of all those mailers filling up your mailboxes and pesky text messages from campaigns. Our reporters will be out at vote centers early in the morning speaking to residents for our Voices of the Voters tradition.
Every Election Day we go out to talk to voters about what drove them to the polls. Often, their reasons have nothing to do with the issues candidates and political consultants spent months trying to get across. Visit our site throughout the day for updates.
As always, we’ll report the latest numbers in tomorrow’s Morning Report. Happy voting!
What’s your prediction? Play our Elections Contest and win a lunch with us.
A Voter Guide Without the Bullshit
If you need a little help today, our inaugural No BS Voter Guide gives you the facts and stakes of this year’s races and propositions without all the fluff.
You can download it to your phone or print it out to fold into a zine. Either way, take it to the polls and leave the BS behind.
Live from Voice of San Diego, It’s Election Night!
That’s right, the number one public affairs and news podcast in San Diego will be live tonight at 11 p.m. where we’ll break down election results as they’re coming in.
San Diego Tapped Into Reserves for First Time in More Than a Decade
City officials pulled money from San Diego’s reserve fund for the first time in more than 10 years to close a structural budget deficit at the end of fiscal year 2026.
If it isn’t abundantly obvious from the higher parking fees and other revenue-generating measures San Diegans have been subjected to recently, the city is facing a massive structural budget deficit. City leaders closed a $118 million deficit mostly through cuts to city services, following a $258 million deficit the year before.
At the close of fiscal year 2026, city officials used reserve funds to close a remaining $4.7 million deficit. They claimed the city expected to receive a $7.4 million reimbursement from the California Office of Emergency Services that still hasn’t arrived, as our Mariana Martinez Barba writes. However, a spokesperson for the agency said they’re still waiting on paperwork from the city to move the process forward.
Why it matters: A reserve fund — essentially a savings account or safety net — is something you typically don’t pull money out of for something as fundamental as balancing a routine budget. The city didn’t even touch it during Covid.
Mayor Todd Gloria’s office maintains that the city is strengthening its financial footing, but some city leaders are left wondering what this move signals about San Diego’s financial future.
In Other News
- Local election officials and poll workers have been training and preparing for all possible scenarios at the polls today, including for the possibility of ICE agents showing up and for potential disruptions near voting locations. (Union-Tribune)
- The Supreme Court yesterday rejected the Trump administration’s push to set aside thousands of California ballots of people who the administration claims are noncitizens. (AP News)The San Diego City Council is launching an effort to bring more childcare businesses to job centers like University City, Clairemont and Mira Mesa, a move that would override an existing county ban on childcare businesses near MCAS Miramar Airport. (Union-Tribune)
- Carlsbad homeless shelter La Posada de Guadalupe of Catholic Charities was supposed to receive $4 million for an expansion, but a its plan to demolish and rebuild some of the property, as well as its previous agreement with the state to house farmworkers, made the shelter ineligible for all but $360,000 of that money. (Union-Tribune)
Related: Our Tigist Layne previously wrote about the temporary farmworkers who live at the shelter and work in nearby farms. Read that story here.
- San Diego leaders are asking a judge to end long-running litigation between the city and the largest leaseholder of Liberty Station, Seligman Properties, which sued the city in 2022 trying to force it to sell its portion of the property. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne and Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.