Davis, CA – The race for the open 2nd District race has not gotten near as much traction as Measure Q. But it figures to be a close race and really has no clear favorite at this time.
Outgoing Councilmember Will Arnold threw a little gas on the fire, when his departure measure turned quickly in a polemic on the Measure Q campaign.
Arnold hit a bit harder than that, writing, “In 2024, Measure Q serves as the latest platform for this vitriol. It echoes patterns we’ve seen before. Two years ago, it was a deeply troubling, race-baiting campaign against my colleague Gloria Partida, the first Latina to serve on the Davis City Council, led by some of the same voices now driving opposition to Measure Q.
“ Prior to that, other issues served as the backdrop for the same maelstrom of hyperbole and conspiracy. Regardless of the topic, the common elements remain: accusations replacing alternative ideas, dehumanization of fellow community members, and calculated attempts to sow doubt, distrust, and confusion.”
Arnold has backed Victor Lagunes to be his successor, but as noted last week, the Council is actually very split on who should replace Arnold. With Arnold joined by Bapu Vaitla in backing Lagunes. Donna Neville and Josh Chapman are backing Linda Deos. And for good measure, Gloria Partida is backing Dillan Horton.
There is probably a tendency to see this as a two-person race but Dillan Horton has the potential to be a lot more formidable than some give him credit for.
While it is true that Dillan is perceived to be the more extreme of the candidates (it is not completely clear that that is all that accurate) Dillan has some clear advantages and one of them ironically is to focus on issues that sets him apart from his rivals.
First Dillan Horton ran in 2020. He has had a campaign organization that is fairly active for some time, and he has been actively involved with community organizations for a number of years.
In 2020, Will Arnold surprised some by running for a second term. He was challenged by Dillan Horton and Colin Walsh. At the time, Arnold was seen as the mainstream or establishment candidate while Walsh ran as a slow-growther and Horton ran as a social justice reformer.
The two challengers were strong enough to keep Arnold just under 50 percent. Horton finished a strong second, finishing with about 25 percent more votes than Walsh.
The 2020 race was a race with an incumbent where there was a clear favorite. Analysts would point out that Arnold got less than half the vote, but he still far outpaced his rivals.
Horton and Walsh split the anti-establishment vote, but it’s again interesting to note that Walsh, the only opponent of the Measure J issue on the ballot, greatly underperformed compared to how the No on DISC ballot issue performed at the polls.
Campaign dynamics are always different, but if Horton can get anywhere close to the 28 percent he got last time, he’ll be right in the thick of things.
That’s because we would expect Deos and Lagunes to be far closer than Arnold and Walsh finished in 2020.
For Deos and Lagunes, the key is going to be getting to about 38 percent – that assumes Horton receiving at least 25 percent, 38 percent would then be the majority of the rest. There are of course no guarantees that Horton will get the same percentage of the vote or similar as last time.
However, he benefits greatly from the experience of running before and name recognition of being on the ballot previously.
That also gives Deos an edge as she ran for Council in 2018, Supervisor in 2020 and now Council again in 2024.
But here’s the interesting little tidbit – if this becomes a close three-person race, someone like Horton could actually win with only 34 to 35 percent of the vote. I am not saying that is the likely outcome, but realistically it is not the biggest lift in the world to go from 28 to say 35 percent of the vote.
I was reminded of these campaign dynamics yesterday when some commenters pointed to comments made by Horton in 2021.
In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder in June 2020, there was a large movement in Davis toward police reform. The council at the time took up many of the planks.
Now commenters noted that Horton in 2021 supported defunding the police.
As one commenter put it: ““defund the police” is a moronic stance for a anyone but especially a potential city council person.”
But like anything, putting things in context is helpful.
First of all, I agree probably somewhat less caustically that “defund the police” was an unfortunate slogan, it didn’t really describe the policy position well, it created a perception that this was an abolitionist policy, and it created a backlash.
However, the core message of “defund the police” recognizes that an armed police response to a number of critical situations is actually less than ideal. There is an acknowledgment by the police of the need to have trained-psychologists or counselors at a scene rather than armed police. That techniques that deescalate volatile situations produces better and more desirable results than armed responses.
So yes, in retrospect it is easy to throw political barbs at such a position, the underlying concepts are somewhat different.
Moreover, there is a campaign dynamic here. In a two person, winner takes all race, minority positions that are controversial tend to work towards a candidates disadvantage.
But in a three person, winner takes all race, the dynamics change. A highly salient, strongly held, minority position could be advantageous.
The key question going into the last few weeks of this election is whether the Davis City Council race can capture significant voter attention and whether Dillan Horton can make this a highly contested three person race. Ironically his best recourse might be to focus on these kinds of issues rather than issues like housing where the three candidates have a lot of agreement.
