Now the Hard Part - San Diego Mayor's Race Part II

Although Kevin Faulconer achieved a 43% total in the first round of San Diego's mayoral special election, there is little guarantee that he will be elected mayor in the runoff next February.  There are some reasons to believe that an energetic and motivated effort will be required for Faulconer to win.

• Turnout for Tuesday's election was only 35%, not the 44% predicted by the registrar.  Low turnout favors Republicans as their voter are more consistent in getting to the polls.
• Voter registration in San Diego. Democrats 40% to Republicans 27%.
• Labor put together a good ground game for Alvarez and will do so in the runoff.
• Latinos, who traditionally have below average turnout will be motivated to elect San Diego's first Latino mayor in David Alvarez.

This is not to say that Faulconer can't or won't win.  Brian Brady at sdrostra has some great analysis on what Faulconer can do.  I am adding my own thoughts as well.

• Remind voters that the Democrats are responsible for this mess in the first place by putting up a known pervert in Filner.  
• Though not a local issue, per se, attack the Democrats on the ACA issue to further weaken their brand name.
• Identify Alvarez as Filner's closest ideological ally on the city council.  
• Tout Faulconer as the man to save the taxpayer's dollars.  He will fight for managed competition and pension reform.  Alvarez doesn't care about the taxpayer's interests on these issues and will seek to gut managed competition like his pal Filner.
• Tout Faulconer as the steady guy to bring competence to the council.  Emphasize Alvarez' relative inexperience.  Quickly seize on any unforced error to reinforce the image of inexperience. 

I am deathly afraid of revisiting financial ruin on our city if the unions call the shots at city hall.  Electing Faulconer is an act of self-preservation.

What You Should Be Reading

• Speaking of the toxicity of the ACA for Democrats, Dean explains why the healthcare.gov fiasco may actually get even worse.
• Holman Jenkins advises the GOP on how to fix the ACA. Jenkins is often brilliant and his column today is one example.  The core of his plan would be to offer low-cost high-deductible  plans and call it an expansion of ACA options to give Democrats political cover to vote for it.  Read how it actually destroys the ACA, but in a good way.
• San Diego Rostra, if you want insider peaks at San Diego politics from a Republican perspective.
• This interactive map of the election results by precinct from inewsource.org.