4 GOPs Drop Out Of 50th Race, Back Issa For Hunter's Seat

Speaker 1: 00:00 The race for the 50th congressional district seat got a lot more interesting today when former representative Darryl ISAT threw his hat in the ring at the district, which encompasses much of Eastern San Diego County and part of Southern Riverside County is currently represented by indicted Congressman Duncan. Hunter Hunter is facing a trial next year on a variety of corruption charges surrounding the misuse of campaign funds here to talk about all of it is political science professor at LA Mesa college. Carl Luna. Carl, welcome. Good to be here. So let's begin by listening to some sound from ISIS news conference this morning. Speaker 2: 00:35 The 50th congressional district does deserve to have the ability to retain this as a conservative district and quite frankly, to have a member who can show up and take all of his committee assignments. Yet Speaker 1: 00:47 now that SA has thrown his hat in, how does that change the race in the 50th congressional district? Speaker 3: 00:53 Well, Jay, it adds another dimension to the movement by the establishment and the party that made me move away from Dunkin Hunter. The way you introduced him and indicted Congressman, that's never good. So the fear of the party's threefold. One Hunter becomes the nominee, he goes to the election and he loses because he's indicted. Possibly just as bad though for party establishment figures. Carl de Mio, the populists, former San Diego council member who's been trying to be a big name in the state, moves on and becomes the, the, the nominee, uh, or you divide the race up. So much company czar, the Democrat actually may have a chance of winning this. So ISIS opposed to solidify the support and be the good, safe alternative. Speaker 1: 01:32 And you mentioned de Mio, former San Diego city councilmen and radio show hosts there. Carl de Mio had already announced his candidacy for the 50th, uh, today. He held the news conference a few feet away from ISIS news conference and he went directly after ISO. Let's listen to that now. Speaker 4: 01:49 This is a politician who epitomizes what is wrong with career politicians. He spent 20 years in DC, he neglected his constituents, and then he lost the support of his district and he failed to put up a fight. Speaker 1: 02:06 Uh, so how much trouble do you think [inaudible] candidacy poses for Eissa? Speaker 3: 02:11 Well before it was how much trouble did it pose for Hunter? And now icy came in and like we said, basically to give you an alternative to the, to a, I think it's substantially a problem for Carl de Maya. You'll see his problem and it reminds me of the old musical 1776 where Benjamin Franklin sings to John Adams. You're obnoxious and disliked. That cannot be denied. That's how a lot of people in the party tend to feel about Carl DeMaio. Don't forget, he's the guy. Nice, gentle Jerry Sanders dropped an F bomb on once because he's so annoyed him. So a lot of people in the party would just assume, put ice back in, even though he'd bailed on his old seat because he thought it was going to lose. He's got the money, he's got the resources, and he can maybe keep this safe until you get somebody who can now continue the dynasty into the 21st century. Speaker 1: 02:54 So let me ask this, good. Eissa in de Mio ended up splitting the Republican vote. Speaker 3: 02:58 Oh, they're going to split the Republican Speaker 1: 03:00 vote. And don't forget you've got Mr. Jones running. You've got that not alone. So the campaign is Yarra, could well come out in the primary as the front vote getter and then have Republicans are mad enough about things and turn out in droves. Then the Republicans win, but they can be so disgruntled. Uh, those who didn't see their guy get across the line, stay home and suddenly the Democrats have purple ISED East County. And you mentioned Brian Jones who announced on Wednesday that he's running for the 50th as well. And that brings the number of Republicans running against Hunter to five. Uh, who do you think will get the party's endorsement? Speaker 3: 03:32 Well, you've seen several people who are running pull out of the race to Nell support Darrell ice up. It's going to be Eissa who gets the endorsement. He's got the, the, the gravitas within the party. It will definitely not be DeMaio. Uh, Mr. Jones, he ran against Duncan Hunter once in that district when he was back at San T before he went to the state and he lost like 70 to 13, 14%. So I don't see him really having the base to rival. And I saw even a DeMaio who brings his listeners and a lot of money to the campaign. Speaker 1: 04:01 And I know that Hunter has that word and dieted before his name, but you know, even though a Hunter has been indicted D do you think he's still a viable candidate in the 50th Speaker 3: 04:11 well, that's becomes the interesting dynamics here because he is still a Hunter and he's got the East County based behind him. He'll have his Roy loyalists still stay with him. And you could see the party being split three ways between the establishment, ISO, the a hundred loyalists and the populists to Mio. And if they can't put it back together after the primary, well, you know there's a major upset that could be in the making Speaker 1: 04:32 and Hunter's 2018 democratic challenger, Amar Campanas Yara lost by less than four percentage points last time around. Is there concern for Republicans that this seat could go blue this time? Speaker 3: 04:42 Well that's why'd Wister Eissa popped into it? He got to think that the fellow is rich. He doesn't have to work for a living. He walked out of of of politics when his party was in the majority and he had made sure committee assignments. If he goes back, yeah they'll give them back to the seniority. He can be on committees, but he's going to be a minority, a party member with very little input to the way things are going or particularly the impeachment process sucking all the air out of the room. I think he's taking one for the team. Speaker 1: 05:09 Should demographic shifts among voters in the 50th concern, the Republican party at all. Speaker 3: 05:13 Oh statewide. That Republican party has to worry about this. The even East County is becoming a little bit more purple. You're seeing the County at large starting to move toward a democratic independent majority cities. San Diego is is blue and you can't rely on that older vote cause older votes disappear from the scene and the younger voters coming in and the area is more dynamic. It's more demographically diverse. Lots of different communities that aren't going to vote the old traditional way they've done since the fifties sixties and seventies Speaker 1: 05:41 and I know during a Hunter's last campaign you said the 50th won't flip. Do you still feel that way? Speaker 3: 05:47 Oh, now this time, I mean again, indited, Congressman and we are living in strange times anyway. Look everything from the local to the national to the international, uh, I can see an age of stranger things. This could possibly occur. How do you think this trial will impact, uh, this, this race? Well, some speculate, and I think this may be part of it. The reason Dunkin Hunter has staying in his, he needs leverage. Should this go to a trial? The other trial comes up in January. If it starts moving badly for him, he can try to make a deal. I will give up my seat without any difficulty. I get some break in whatever's coming down. He might still be hoping that since he was an early endorser of president Trump, the president will come in with a wild card. Pardon? At some point. But president Trump a, has his own problems, and B, he's kind of fickle when it comes to helping his friends. Speaker 3: 06:35 So, uh, I think he will hold onto it until he can't. And then he will either lose in the primary or it'll be forced out by the members of the house voting to basically expel him. I hear people saying that the 50th congressional district is one of the more exciting races in the entire country right now. Yeah. That's one of those things about the Congress that 435 seats in any given time, 20 to 40 might be really in play. A lot of those flipped in 2018 so you don't anticipate a huge shift this time around in 2020 so when you look at it, you've got all the drama, you've got crime, you've got sex because of what sort of some of the money was spent on. You've got political drama. Let me, this is our local game of Thrones and generally in a slow news cycle, this would be the headlines today across the nation. Now it's a page seven presidents being impeached story. I've been speaking as a Carl Luna political science professor at LA Mesa college. Carl, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.