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, so about 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 the 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 which deescalate volatile situations produce better and more desirable results than armed responses.
So yes, in retrospect it is easy to throw political barbs at such a position, but 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 candidate’s 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.
“Defund the Police” was a juvenile statement of opposition that was born from valid frustrations, grief and fury at the mistreatment of people (often minorities and disadvantaged groups like the homeless) by some of the police across the country. So I get why street level activists might have picked up on the “Defund the Police” bandwagon. But anyone involved with civic government and politics knows that taken literally that “Defund the Police” was a stupid concept and slogan. People in civic government should know better and pick up on the sentiment about the Police and turn it into a positive effort for Police REFORM and restructuring; which is largely what happened but the message started out needlessly in controversy. The communication to the people by progressive leaders should have been from the start that the goal was to HELP the police, STRENGHTEN the police by providing MORE FUNDING for social reform issues; such as community engagement for the homeless, drug use….even traffic..etc…by hiring social workers that work for the police or with the police. The communication by progressives should have been we want to help the police by taking these things off of their hands as much as possible so they can focus on important community protection and service. And of course police officer accountability; that’s generally popular with everybody; the message would be MORE POLICE…but MORE GOOD POLICE. But of course Liberal Progressives in government suck at communication and so 5-6 years later we’re still left with the “Defund the Police” stupidity.
As for the candidates? Eh, I don’t see a whole lot that separates them.
PETA MEMBER: “But Stan, don’t you know? It’s always between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Nearly every election since the beginning of time has been between some douche and some turd. They’re the only people who suck up enough to make it that far in politics.”
At the end of the episode
STAN: “I learned that I’d better get used to having to pick between a douche and a turd sandwich, because it’s usually the choice I’ll have.”
– South Park “Douche and Turd” (2004)